New Friends
by Mister Buch
Summary: Shepard is a 16 year-old penniless petty thief living on Earth. She starts running with the 10th Street Reds and finds a new life for herself. When the gang plans to assassinate a turian veteran she has to find the great strength she has been ignoring.
1. Her Own Personal Paradise

**Chapter One**

**Her Own Personal Paradise**

-

Shepard had been in Arizona too long. People were starting to recognise her in the street and that made her edgy. She had spent four tired, meandering years in the once-great State and it had taken less than a month to see everything that could be seen and sample the experiences it offered. On her sixteenth birthday, she wandered the familiar streets of Phoenix under the same old sky and the same old tired, lazy sun. At least the weather was good.

The girl was thin and rather slight. Her long hair was straight and boring and her face held no remarkable feature. Years of solitary travel across various megatropolises had left her voice flat and unspecific, and she deliberately dressed to avoid attention. Silently she walked through the white streets, looking at palm trees and tall, gleaming buildings she had already seen. It was pretty but no different to any of the other big cities she had known. Still it was nice to be there. The smog and overcrowding were much less apparent in the capital, and walls were adorned with enormous laserscreens showing extranet pages in startling high quality.

The real gem to be found in the big city, however, was the optimism. The colonies out in space had been enjoying more and more success in the last few years, and now they had finally found it in their hearts to send a little of it back home. As a result the developed cities on Earth were suddenly gifted with credits which were immediately used to filter the air and build laserscreens. The streets of Phoenix were a great deal brighter lately, and the good feeling was so infectious that some of the more hopeful citizens were even calling it a 'golden age'. As she wandered about, watching people pass by and listening to them talk, either to each other or to thin air with a tiny transmitter on their collar, Shepard enjoyed the optimism vicariously. People seemed to be dressed more nicely and there was, for some reason, not a scrap of litter to be seen on the ground. Evidently some of the colonial cash had gone to a street-cleaning programme.

When she started to get hungry Shepard considered heading home. It had been relaxing looking around Phoenix's streets and she had made a fun trip to the Space Museum, but city food was too expensive. When she reached the end of the street she crossed, turned and picked up the pace a little. Humming the jingle from the news reports on the big screens above, she figured out the quickest route back to the train station. It would only cost her a few minutes if she swung by the Navy training centre along the way.

The centre was a wide, prominent building whose wedge-shaped base protruded a little into the street as if announcing its splendour. Whenever she was visiting, the girl would make an effort to walk by the building and admire the attentive, busy soldiers inside. The interior of the building was a dark, serious blue, and everything from the lighting to the uniforms worn inside helped to create the mood. Shepard was fascinated by the Alliance Navy and envied the structured, heroic lives of those who served. Walking past and peering into the wide windows gave her a glimpse into the dream and let her wonder if it might be possible to join their ranks and see the stars herself one day. Probably not. She had been trying to escape the South for a year. Getting off the _planet_ would not be an easy task.

--

Today when she passed the centre she was lucky enough to encounter something for the first time. On the street across the way, chatting with a tall man wearing a pretentious sunvisor, were two salarians. At first, Shepard almost didn't know what she was looking at. She had seen aliens on her visits to the capital in the past, but usually it was the pretty asari. Once she had seen a batarian, back when they were welcome on Earth, and very occasionally turians would dare to visit, but the sight of these thin, gangly creatures was something entirely new to her. They were a lot taller than they seemed on extranet screens, and a lot… shinier. They looked unreal, like life-sized plastic models of aliens to be used as a prop in an old-time movie. She found it hard to imagine that there weren't thin actors inside those bizarre costumes, putting on the silly voices and animating the black, glossy eyes from within. She stepped closer.

"Yes, it certainly has been," said the lighter-skinned alien. The way he pronounced the last word made it sound more like 'bin', and this made the young Shepard giggle. Luckily, the pair didn't hear.

"Well hey, I sure hope I see you guys again next month," the suited, sun-visored man gushed, brimming with the fake enthusiasm of the city-dweller. The serene aliens nodded and told him that he would see them on the day of their appointment.

At this point the darker salarian removed a triangular wallet from a fold in his rubbery, tight jacket. After a moment his long fingers produced a card of some kind and offered it to the man with a smile on the corners of his pencil-thin mouth. Having received this item, the human lost his enthusiasm, smiled again and turned away. The salarians struck-up a conversation of their own as they headed down the street, strolling slowly but covering a lot of distance with each stride. The dark-skinned one replaced the wallet but absently left it half-exposed in a back pocket. There weren't many people on this street and no-one but Shepard was looking at the strange visitors.

It was too much of an invitation to resist. Silently walking behind them, her head down, Shepard stepped up to the aliens and got close to their backs. Still involved in their conversation, they failed to detect her proximity, and certainly the dark creature did not notice the very slight friction of his wallet sliding from the jacket. She slowed her walking then headed straight for a side-street, not stopping to look behind her until she was alone. It was done.

Opening it up revealed not only the princely sum of fifty credits, but also all sorts of little cards and datachips offering glimpses into salarian culture. Shepard would have as much fun spending that money as she would poring over the information on the chips, learning about the curious, shiny people she had stolen from. For the moment, the money was more appealing; it was a lot more than she usually found in a lifted wallet. She wondered about how best to use it. This being her birthday, perhaps she should spend those credits on some real, fresh food and stay in Phoenix for another couple of hours. She quickly decided against this, feeling a little afraid that the lanky creatures might chase after her and knowing that even with this boon she had no money to waste. The experience of encountering the aliens and obtaining some interesting data would have to be enough of a present. Jogging now, she made for the train station.

Soon Shepard found herself in a populated street again and the running became conspicuous. Always fingering the credits in the pocket of her long, dark coat, she slowed her pace and crossed the road. Finally she found relief in the sight of the Alliance Union Station and breathed a little easier. She was used to taking wallets in daylight but the exotic nature of her victim and the fact that it had happened so near to her beloved training centre instilled a mixture of nerves and guilt. The feeling lessened gradually as she came closer to the station doors. Once she was inside, it left her. There were more pressing matters now. First, she had to find a way around the ticket scanner. She sure as hell wasn't paying.

Technological advances had left Union Station almost unmanned, but this didn't make it any easier to get a free ride. In fact, a few months ago it had become nearly impossible to avoid paying, thanks to the newly-installed, solid blue force wall. The access corridor used to have a simple metal stile, automatically operated but easy to climb over when no-one was looking. Same as all the smaller stations. Now there was no way to go over as the imposing blue wall completely filled the tunnel. Shepard had no idea how the thing worked, even what that damn blue stuff _was_, so she had no chance of bypassing it with her omni-tool. She hadn't even brought it with her today. Her only options, she figured, were to obtain someone else's ticket or to slip through behind another passenger.

It was a little busy for pick-pocketing and she hadn't forgotten the unexpected pang of guilt from robbing the salarian. Better to slip in behind another passenger this time.

A suitably aloof mark appeared soon, openly fumbling for his ticket card as he approached the unsightly blue force-field. He was large, wore a hat and seemed oblivious to anything going on around him, focused as he was on the search for his ticket. Shepard made a silent but deliberate move toward his back. People might see her, but they would probably think he was her father or something. As the large man finally located his ticket and started forward, the girl tucked herself quietly into his back and prepared to spring forward if necessary.

He stopped again and the field vanished with a satisfied 'bleep'. It would stay down for five seconds, but the man was stood still, fumbling around with his wallet _again_. Two seconds passed with him muttering and Shepard trying to edge to the side.

Another second. Why was he doing this _now? _Shepard assessed the situation quickly, knowing she had to make a decision. Either she could jump right past the idiot and risk him reporting her, or else she had to spend six of the fifty credits she'd found to actually buy a ticket. She hated that blue field. Not only would she be losing money, to pay for a card would be like letting the damn thing win.

She'd just run for it. There weren't enough security staff to find her before a train arrived. Abandoning stealth, she jumped to the side of the man and pushed forward.

The field reappeared just at the worst moment and effectively slammed into her nose. She fell back, steadied herself and retreated to avoid the confused sputterings of the fat man. Feeling her pained face with her left hand, Shepard found the salarian's wallet and headed for the automated ticket booths.

--

When the doors of the train closed behind her with a cosmetic hiss, Shepard was still angry and her nose still hurt. The end of it throbbed a little and made the irritation far worse. There were too many people in the carriage, and it was only by the strongest effort that she had secured her seat , squashed between a woman reading some sort of portable videoscreen and a young man who found it impossible to resist glancing over at Shepard and smiling to himself. She didn't know what his motives were, but she hated being looked at. The man was attractive and tastefully dressed, but had dyed his hair and small goatee dark blue. There were no moustache or sideburns to accompany the little beard and his fingers were adorned with small, silver rings. He seemed to scream for attention, and Shepard was annoyed that she had given some to him.

She should _never_ have headed South. When she made the decision, she had no idea how quickly things got worse the closer you got to Mexico. Now that she had made her mistake and grown up, she had made a point of learning all about the planet's plight. Earth was unlike all the other settlements in that nobody was making any real effort to improve it. The air was dirty, the sea levels were rising and as if this wasn't enough, the planet's children had decided to dump tons of space ship debris into the immediate orbit. Anyone who was important was in outer space, colonising planets in the Exodus cluster and naming them after mythical utopias. Who would choose to stay on Earth when they could choose from Xanadu, Nirvana and Eden Prime? Only those who couldn't afford any better, or the few privileged groups who ran the Alliance governments and owned the big cities.

The differences between rich and poor were more distinct and unpleasant on Earth than any other planet in known space, making it the Alliance's humanitarian embarrassment. There were a few nation-states who still enjoyed luxury. Canada and Japan had prospered while large parts of Asia, Europe and the Middle East had ground to a halt. The United States were surviving, but the infection of poverty and urban decay was beginning to rise up from the ruins of Middle America. Arizona had been hit hard. Phoenix was clean and beautiful, but it was surrounded by a grimy, culturally-forsaken mass of cities on all sides. The coming 'golden age' the rich folks had talked about today would have to be pretty special if it were to save the Earth. The Alliance leadership would need a lot more money from the colonies.

With the exception of its small bright spots and empty, automated farmland, Earth was one big, ugly, red sand-addicted city. The discovery of the Prothean ruins on Mars had accelerated human development further than it could handle. Somewhere between fighting a war against an unknowable alien army, colonising a new system and revolutionising technology and medicine, the needs of Earth had just been left behind. And the people who didn't manage to rent an apartment in their nearest big city were suffering and bitter. Everyone knew this wouldn't last forever. In a couple of generations the Alliance would get a hold of itself and fix everything. But until then, Shepard would just have to think of a better way of getting past that goddamn force field.

When the flat, windowless train made its fifth stop, Shepard knew she was home. Having to shimmy past the creepy young man with the blue beard, who was _still _looking at her, she made her way out and found the sun was gone. Time had passed and the fading light was, as always, obscured by grey pollution, but the effect struck her anyway. She tied her old, black jacket closed and put her hands in her pockets, tightly secured around her own purse and the stolen wallet.

The ticket scanner in Glendale Linkway Station would have been easy to jump over, but since she had the ticket she figured she might as well use it. Once she was through she dropped the card to the ground for someone else to get a use out of. She wouldn't have any need to visit the capital for a while. Seeing the clear skies, the white pavements and of course the deep blue majesty of the training centre always refreshed her, but the only money to be made was in the occasional borrowed wallet. Besides, fifty credits would pay her power and fresh water meters for a while and she already had food. Better stay home for a while.

At this time of day the crowds were at their worst. Glendale was always stuffed with too many people, but when the evening began to dawn the roads would fill with cars and the streets would fill with those who could not afford transport. Most of the people, or at least their faces, were known to Shepard, though few recognised her small frame, shrouded by strands of hair and concealed between passers-by. It was hot under the thick, Southern air and surrounded by the writhing mess of bodies, but she was used to it.

In fact, she was sick of it. After she left her original home, when the orphanage grew too full to house twelve-year-olds, she had been sent to Illinois. The megatropolis there was better than she had been used to and she was lucky enough to have someone to look after her. It was good while it lasted, but it softened her up too much. When she found herself all alone again she had decided to travel. That was the stupidest, if not the worst, decision she had ever made. At the very least she should have gone North. Now it had been three years in the myriad identical slums surrounding Phoenix and she wanted dearly to get out and see something new. Even just slightly new would be nice.

But Glendale held one attraction that nowhere else had held for her since Illinois. A home. Not only a home, but a big one. It was warm enough and always had food and drink available for her. It was the largest, emptiest amount of space Shepard had encountered in the whole of Arizona, and only she knew it existed. It was heavenly.

As she drew away from Glendale's centre and made her way into what were laughingly called the suburbs, Shepard found the pain from her nose and the anger of being beaten by the force field diminishing. Soon she would be home, sat down, learning all about salarians and eating birthday cake. Most likely, she would have a little drink to wash it down with too.

She found her neighbourhood just as busy as everywhere else, and it took her some time to cross the road. Even then she had to run and ignore several car horns. Leaving the street, she slipped behind the side of the old abandoned supermarket. Its parking lot was filling up with traffic, as if they had all come to do some shopping. In fact they were merely taking advantage of the free spaces, as they had done every night. Parking on the streets themselves was dangerous and there were not nearly enough driveways to go around. The expansive lot outside the locked, bolted and steel-boarded Kost Mart market offered safety in numbers to those car owners who were quick enough to find a space.

Shepard would often wonder what the original name of the market had been. 'Kost Mart' was surely not a smart name for a retail outlet, and she could see that at least one letter had fallen from the large, plastic sign above the doors. Maybe it was '_Low_ Kost Mart?' Whatever it had been, it was Kost Mart now. One side of it faced the tall, grey, concrete wall of the neighbouring apartment block, and in the small gap between the buildings, Shepard found a rare spot where nobody could see her. Sighing a little with the relief of solitude, she began scaling the wall of the Mart. The concrete at her back helped give her something to lean against, but the chips in the bricks and the edges of the steel shutters on the market were here hand and footholds.

It did not take too much effort to reach the top level of the store as she was used to it now. When she did find it, she took only a moment to get her breath back before pulling aside a piece of corrugated iron to reveal her entry point. A broken window in the ceiling allowed her to jump down to a little utility room. From here she climbed back up on a ladder and repositioned the metal sheet covering her secret entrance.

Home at last. Time to relax.

After she had bathed and changed into her other set of clothes, Shepard found her way to the main hall of the supermarket and pushed a shopping cart into one of the aisles. Climbing into it and using a mop to propel herself, she spent a happy half-hour riding the rickety, noisy trolley around the market, achieving high speeds and quick turns and laughing throughout. She even managed to complete a full circuit of the hall in under three minutes, but unfortunately as she raced across the finish line she had designated, the cart smashed into a shelf.

The collision knocked cans of quick-dry soup all over the floor, breaking one or two open. The girl's joy faded in a moment and she spent the next while cleaning up the mess and carefully rearranging the cans. Shepard didn't like to see the Kost Mart in disarray. She was very lucky to have found a way into this marvellous place, so it was her duty to keep it clean.

Finally, as the evening drew on, the girl retired to the staff canteen, or 'the living room' as she preferred to call it. Here she had a comfy chair and an old computer screen which she used to view the extranet. An old television set was in the corner, which still picked up a weak signal from somewhere or other. At the centre of the table, set up and waiting since that morning, was her sweet sixteen birthday feast. A small coffee cake, packaged in cardboard and dry-wrap but the best specimen available in the whole building, lay next to a bottle of champagne and a pink mug. She beamed from ear to ear as she saw these treats. They were her favourites.

The cake was delicious, and she was hungry for it after the day in Phoenix and the exertions of her best-ever shopping cart race time. The wine was typically perfect and she savoured it. There were two shelves' worth of dried cakes on the shelves of Kost Mart's main hall, but not a lot of champagne. She had to ration it. Nonetheless, the cake and the bottle disappeared within a couple of hours, and she had to leave the room in order to retrieve a bottle of good gin.

The drinking continued as Shepard hooked up the salarian datachips to her omni-tool. To her disappointment, there was nothing to be seen but a few personal effects and details of some sort of business merger. The official letters bored her quickly and it would have been rude to read the personal notes. Muttering drunkenly to herself, she switched off the tool and detached it from her arm. She returned to the bottle in silence, lost in her fuzzy thoughts.

Although Shepard was having as good a time as she had experienced in years, the pathetic desperation of the occasion was not lost on her. She decided to quit the gin as these melancholy thoughts came to her. Any more of the stuff would only make her worse. After standing up, she decided to cheer herself up. Maybe back in Illinois her life would have been better. Maybe living as a Navy Cadet or making a living in Phoenix somehow would be fantastic. It was impossible not to wonder how her life would have progressed if her parents, whoever they were, had decided to keep her. But frankly, not one of these alternatives would have resulted in Shepard living in and owning her very own abandoned, near-impenetrable supermarket. That was a wonderful gift she had been given, and she was going to enjoy it.

The people who had left Earth now lived in 'Utopia' and 'Asgard' while most of the folks left behind were stuck with the megatropolises. As far as she knew, though, no-one but Shepard lived in their very own market, with a near-endless supply of dried food and chilled drinks. She was lucky in that she didn't have to farm a colony all day. She had found her own personal paradise, and she came home to it every night.

With a steadfast determination, the birthday girl marched from the canteen and slumped her alcohol-slowed body into another shopping cart. This one handled better than the last, and she aimed to beat her time. At around midnight she tumbled out of the cart and fell asleep on the floor of the frozen food aisle.


	2. August 5th 2166

**Chapter Two**

**August 5****th**** 2166**

-

"Is it time for dinner, Ray? Is it salmon again? It's salmon, right?"

Shepard finally puts down her little wrench and leaves it on her oil rag next to the allen key. She hasn't really been doing anything for nearly an hour. Just humming to herself and feeling hungry.

"Salmon tonight? Ray? I'm thinking you oughtta put some pastry over it. Salmon… y'know… pie."

Ray is still behind the motorcycle. He is small, not much bigger than Shepard herself and she can barely see him behind it.

"Hey Ray! Salmon? Hey! Heeeeeeeey!"

There is an audible grunt, which she suspects has nothing to do with his work on the bike.

"We are having pork and beans." It's hard to make out from his voice if he is amused or just irritated by the long-running salmon joke.

"What did you say? I can't hear you behind that thing. Salmon and beans? What kind of beans do you have with salmon? Butterbeans?"

"Kid, it's pork and beans. I don't like salmon. I will never serve you salmon again. Maybe if you finish your work for today I'll give you some money and you can buy some salmon of your own."

Shepard stays silent. There isn't much to say to this. Clearly Ray doesn't want to play. She scrapes her greasy hair behind her and ties it off, then wipes her hand on the oil rag. She hums for a moment. She really doesn't want to finish this work. She's been doing it all day and it's nearly there. She just doesn't feel like work anymore.

"Ray, my hair is all covered in stuff. Can I get a shower and then we'll have the salmon? I'll help you peel the vegetables."

Ray still doesn't look up. He isn't in a good mood today. "Enough with the salmon. That wasn't funny when you came up with it. No you can't get a damn shower. You're on the clock, so earn your room and board. Have you got the new pads in there?"

Shepard pouts at the shiny, black bike. "Yeah. It was hard."

"Well then put the bolts back, stick the wheel on there and you're done. The hell are you complaining about?"

Furrowing her eyebrows, the girl gets angry. She picks up the wrench and deliberately strikes the wheel with it so that Ray thinks she is working. It isn't right that she should be working a full day job. She's _twelve years old_, for God's sake. Why did she have do install brake pads on a Sunday? Why did it have to be pork and beans every other night?

Sometimes she wishes that Ray had never taken her out of the Landing. There were other kids there and they didn't have to work for their bed. It was fun. But the place got too crowded, so the older kids had to leave. Ray arrived and just took her in, took her all the way to this place here in the middle of Illinois and made her fix old-time cars all day. Gave her a bed and stuff.

There is a sound of rough hands on overalls as Ray stands up. He flicks on the radio, as he calls it, and a typically sweet Billie Holiday song plays into the garage. Shepard immediately starts tightening the bolts in front of her, hoping he didn't see her pouting at the bike.

She feels a hot hand on her shoulder, and she knows there is grease on it now.

"It _is_ a weekend. You go make yourself, you know, relatively pretty and I'll finish up here."

Shepard doesn't look at him. "I can do it. It won't take me long. Just gotta put the wheel back now."

The hand pats her and it feels good. He didn't pat her often and that made it better. She just wishes he were more like a dad than a boss to her, that's all. Suddenly she is unhappy again and she decides to shut it out. She works hard until she's done. Finally the wheel is reattached and secure. Ray can check to make sure everything is done right later. It is, so she doesn't have to worry about it.

The clock says it's two minutes to five PM. That will do. She knows there won't be any complaints if she goes to shower a couple of minutes early. She says it's done and hastily puts the tools on the wall. Sure would be nice if they had an omni-tool in this place. It would cut their work in half. Well, it wouldn't help replacing brake pads, but with the fancier jobs.

As she puts her foot on the first of the stairs she hears his voice just barely louder than Holiday's. He says "Atta girl." She loves it when he does that.

When she gets upstairs she pulls off the dirty t-shirt and heads straight to the shower. Her hair is all over the place and keeps sticking to her face. So she showers and hums the song from the radio.

Eventually she reappears, scrubbed clean and wearing a new, white t-shirt and blue pants. She is grinning to nobody as she heads into her small bedroom and lays on the bed. The window is shut and it's hot, so she opens it and enjoys the breeze completely.

She has to admit, no matter how much she misses the Landing, it is _nice_ having her own bedroom. The room is small but she has a big wardrobe and a desk with a mirror. She has a little make-up too, but lately she doesn't see the point in wearing it. She tells herself this is because she's getting older. She's growing up.

Come to think of it, Ray isn't so bad. He does the cooking most nights, even if he is unnaturally fixated on pork and beans these days. But he's like that, and she finds it kind of sweet. Ray Dolphus is the kind of person who gets stuck on little obsessions and won't let them go for months, until he just quits them and moves on to something else. Shepard likes that about him. Every now and again he surprises her with something crazy, like the time he decided he was going to learn piano and he just bought this big keyboard and set it up in the garage. He played it pretty well until he got bored and sold it. Shepard is like that too sometimes. Her jokes about the salmon incident are currently the big thing in conversation, but soon she will tire of it and find another little catchphrase.

The other great thing about Ray is his stories. He has led so many different lives and has an anecdote for every one. Her favourite is the story where he met the Citadel ambassador and slept with his wife, but he also has a lot of stories about the year he spent serving in the armed forces. The middle-aged mechanic is a quiet, man, but hilarious when he wants to be. He has total confidence in himself and he can bring about any reaction he wants in his young lodger. She isn't sure she prefers him to her old life, but she admires him a lot.

Interrupting her train of thought, Ray's uniquely rough and yet squeaky voice calls her first name from the bottom of the stairs. The garage is directly underneath. There is a kitchen attached to the back but everything else is built on top. She hears him wait for a reply for a couple of seconds then he gives up and wanders back to the kitchen.

When she finds the energy to drag her relaxed body from the bed, Shepard is starting to get excited about dinner. She can't smell anything, so she lets her imagination have a little fun. Maybe just this once, he really has cooked salmon.

No, that would be ridiculous. He hates salmon. They had it once after that big payday and he made such a fuss out of how much he didn't like it. She had both pieces with ketchup and loved it. Never again, he said. When the girl arrives at the dinner table she has convinced herself that Ray has made _tuna fish_ as an awkward, extremely male way of thanking her for working all weekend without fully capitulating to the salmon demands.

"Dinner's up," he says, looking behind him.

"Do I smell salmon?" she asks, grinning ridiculously to annoy him.

He groans, opens the oven and pulls out a pan. It's pork and beans.

She is sad for a moment, then pours a drink of apple juice and sits down. She likes pork and beans. They begin to eat in almost silence, because they are both tired. It gets boring, so Shepard wonders if she can convince the boss to talk a bit. One of his stories would go well with dinner and get him to lighten up a little. After trying to think of a suitable question, she remembers what she was going to ask him the other day.

"Hey Ray, you know your last name?"

"Yes, I do."

"It's kind of weird, isn't it? How did your family come by that name?"

Ray looks up from his food and smiles a smile he has been trying to conceal.

"Let's be straight with each other here, my nosy little friend. You're asking if the name Dolphus is turian."

She feels her cheeks heat up. "It sounds like an alien name. I didn't mean to…"

"You didn't. It's fine. As a matter fact I've been wondering when you'd get around to asking me about that. You shouldn't say _alien_, by the way. It's common. I like to say _non-human_."

Shepard wonders about this. She didn't mean the word offensively. She has never heard it used to disparage the alien species, not even on the extranet. There are much worse words if one intends offence. Come to think of it, _everyone_ calls them aliens, even the people on the news. She considers telling him so, but decides against it. He didn't make it sound like it was a big deal so she forgets it for now.

As she eats her pork and beans Ray gets an impish look on his face and tells her one of the best stories he's ever told. It concerns a friendship with a female turian when he lived in Ireland. He says young Shepard reminds him of her.

It's strange to imagine meeting a non-human, let alone having the kind of adventures with one that Ray is describing. Shepard can't decide if she really believes any of it, but the story cheers them both up while they eat.


	3. Human Contact

**Chapter Three**

**Human Contact**

-

The roof of the Kost Mart was not among Shepard's favourite places to relax, but she was sick of everywhere else. It was interesting, if a little depressing, to be able to look over the edges and see all the people going about their business. Jackie the singing tramp had taken up residence just across the street from her lately, and he seemed to be doing pretty good business. The sight of him made her want to share her good fortune. She still wasn't close to running out of food from the shelves and the stockroom and she had more than enough roof over her head. But of course, it didn't work like that in Glendale. Shepard knew that if she let Jackie or anyone else know about the Mart, it would be converted into a crowded shanty town by nightfall.

Sometimes Shepard considered begging. Being young and female, she ought to make some good money. She could pull a cute face if need be. But it would be dishonest. She only needed money for water and electricity. Perhaps once the preserved food started to run out, she would beg. Or maybe that would be a good reason to leave. Though she was reluctant to ever sacrifice the Mart, a street corner or empty doorway in a new city would at least give her something new to look at.

Shrugging off the thoughts, Shepard sucked back another mouthful of gin and lay down. The air was pretty thin today so it was almost like sunbathing. As her eyes closed she felt uncomfortable and rolled over onto her left side. Having slept on the floor last night, she had a little ache in her right side and she was still pretty tired.

She stood. If she was going to fall asleep in the day it ought to be on a bed, or else she'd just hurt both of her sides. Jackie's singing was getting to annoy her anyway. Once the lid was screwed back onto the bottle and then the bottle secured in her waistband, she took a few steps. When she reached the edge of the roof she went through the familiar motions of shuffling down with her right hand gripping the tiles, swinging around and kicking the corrugated iron sheet out of the way. As she moved to leap through the window, she lost her grip and started to fall.

Without so much as a raised eyebrow the sinewy girl forced her fingers into a small gap in the mortar and stretched out her other palm to balance her against the wall behind her. She emitted a short breath as she climbed back up and pulled herself gently into the Kost Mart's utility room. Shepard viewed it as a sort of cloakroom, and she had left her jacket there that morning.

Pulling her drink from her shorts she ambled out of the room and into her bedroom. It had once been a manager's office, but Shepard had gutted it long ago to make space for a bed. She had managed to find one broken in half at a city dump a few miles away. Fixing it had been a very simple endeavour and had occupied her for a couple of days. The mattress was hard but the right size, and it had felt nice to obtain something without resorting to theft. The bed wasn't ideal but it was hers, and it easily beat the sleeping bags and dirty pavements she had once been used to.

Lying down on her good side and pulling the sheets over herself, Shepard gave in to complete comfort. After thinking about it briefly, she decided she hadn't the energy to kick off her boots or her shorts and just closed her eyes.

Only one problem. The lights were on in the bedroom and the main hall. If she was going to sleep in the daytime, she sure wasn't going to waste her electricity. Those fifty credits would last a solid month or more if she was careful with them. She knew she wouldn't sleep if she was wasting power. Pulling away the warm, soft covers, she yawned. Her legs were the first over the edge. Then an arm steadied her body against the high desk. At this, she grew bored of her slow, complaining ascent and just stood up. She decided she might as well hit the main light switch panel outside the living room.

After opening the door she made a few steps across, listening to the unnecessary clangs as her rubber soles hit the floor. They chimed in a dull, monotonous rhythm, like a clock ticking.

_Clang, clang, clang._

_Clap!_

The last noise took her by surprise and halted her, mid-stride. It had come from another room. Maybe the hall. Going completely silent, she waited to hear it again.

_Clop!_

Close enough. It was certain, then. Somebody else was inside the Kost Mart, and having a jolly, carefree time making noises in the hall. Shepard froze for a moment. She hated meeting people. People were her big weakness. And more importantly, _someone had discovered the Kost Mart_. She ran.

Finally arriving in the main food hall, she initially saw nothing unusual. Now though she could hear a shopping cart being pushed around the aisles to her right. It sounded heavy too. Either it was full or the intruder had no experience of pushing shopping carts. After vaulting a checkout to save time, Shepard resumed her chase. Her heart beat hard and loud in a way she hadn't felt in years. Momentarily she considered stopping to catch her breath, but then she reached the cans of good sweetcorn. Some of them were missing and others were not straight. Without bothering to breathe she followed the sound of the cart. It had stopped moving now; whoever was behind it was waiting for her to find him.

It suddenly occurred to her that she might have to fight. The sort of person who would climb a wall to break into someone's home might be dangerous. And in Glendale, dangerous meant lethal. She was unarmed and had no idea what do say or do when she found the corn thief. She panicked, but the momentum of her run was too much for her to stop before she reached the cart.

Finally, breathing heavily and pushing her hands against the clean shelves as she slowed, Shepard came to a halt in front of a young man with a white, tailored shirt, a lot of thin, silver rings and a gun.

His eyes were a deep chocolate brown. They were calmly handsome and would have grabbed Shepard's attention immediately, were it not for the thick and carefully shaped hair. It was dyed dark blue.

"Not very subtle," he said simply. "I heard you running the whole time." He was smiling just a little, as if he were trying not to. It looked friendly.

Still reeling from the sight of another person in her market, Shepard could think of nothing to say. She was not yet ready to react to the gun or the familiar face. Someone was inside the main hall.

"Not very subtle yesterday, either. I saw you falling on your face tryin' to dodge a security door. Followed you here."

"Hmn," she said. She was furious with herself.

"Yeah, I walk past this market maybe three times a week. I never figured to try to move in." The gun lowered a few inches, pointing at the girl's stomach. Shepard knew a little about guns. This was a good one. A Kessler, but better than the standard military issue. It was a moot point though. Any gun could put a bullet through her thin blouse and into her body, and no-one would hear the shot here in the Kost Mart.

"So, what?" the man asked, looking around as if he had just arrived. "You live here? Pretty sweet. Got all the crap, dry-frozen food you want, huh?" He laughed. "I've eaten worse, I guess. Huh." It was then that Shepard adjusted to the shock and looked down at the trolley. There was a lot of sweetcorn in there, but a lot more booze. The alcohol shelves had been left better-stocked than most when the supermarket had been closed and abandoned and she had always enjoyed the large supply of drink. It looked like the interloper was taking a good third of it.

"You don't say much, sweetness."

"No," Shepard answered, trying very hard not to appear like a victim. Pistols had been aimed at her before, but never by someone who was likely to pull the trigger. She steadied her voice, ignoring the rising panic. "Yeah, I live here. Found it three years ago." She paused and selected one of the many questions she had for him. "Why did you follow me?"

The gunman extended his thin bottom lip as he considered it. "Well, couple of reasons. You looked kinda capable, for one. Kinda pretty, too. Guess I was right to follow you, though. Got me a nice stash of alcoholic beverages. Maybe you'd like to share some with me…?"

The tall man moved forward with great confidence and allowed the gun to slip a little more. Shepard figured if it went off now it would only hit her foot. When she felt his hot palm moving too smoothly across her cheek she made a snap decision and struck his right wrist. The attack landed well and another convinced him to drop the gun. She followed this up with a punch to his tough belly and a good kick which landed sadly south of its destination, but seemed to hurt his thigh plenty.

When he was done swearing, the injured man pulled a knife and made it to Shepard before she could reach the gun on the floor.

"You're not _that_ pretty," he said in laboured breaths. "But it looks like you can handle yourself, huh? Good for a little more than picking alien pockets."

The knife was close to her neck but it was obviously just intended to keep her still. Shepard could feel her arms shaking with terror as she considered what she had just done and what she had avoided. Her body became cold. Again she blanked-out the thoughts and stared the man down. She nodded. It was true; she had learned to fight a long time ago. This particular success had more to do with luck and adrenaline than skill, but she decided not to tell him so.

The knife retracted and the man retrieved his gun. He now made sure to stand a little further back and kept the gun aimed loosely at the girl's midsection. "Now," he said, fiddling with one of his rings. "Don't worry. I just decided you're not my type. Maybe's you're a little shy about human contact. Fear of commitment and whatnot. But here's why you're going to apologise for hitting me. How much do you know about the Tenth Street Reds?"

Shepard's lips pursed a little. The Reds were well-known as one of the newer, more ambitious gangs in Glendale. They had risen quickly. The only people who knew more than that were either members, rich addicts or very foolish.

"I know enough to stay away from Tenth Street," she replied, trying to sound cool. He laughed a little and waved the gun in a circle, encouraging her. Without hesitation she said, "I'm sorry I hit you." The humility probably saved her from a bullet wound, or at least a beating. Her face felt numb.

"That's better. Now we can get introduced. What do they call you? What do your many local neighbourhood customers call you when they come over here for their dried groceries?"

"Shepard."

"Right," the man scoffed. "Got yourself some kind of street nickname, huh?" He lowered his voice for mock dramatic effect as he said the name back. "_Shepherd!_ You think you're some kind of big leader? Is that about it?"

The girl shook her head and explained that it was just her name. The jocular tone left the other for a moment and his face turned hard as diamond.

"Well mine's Jay," he said in a gravelly, natural voice. "The _Reds_ call me _Blue_ Jay." The gun temporarily pointed at his beard. Shepard kept quiet, but wondered why he hadn't chosen to dye his hair the more appropriate colour of red. Her face must have betrayed her, because his nose crinkled up a bit. Were it not for the gun, she might have found his embarrassment quite sweet.

"We don't _wear_ colour-coded outfits, Bo Peep! We don't call ourselves Reds for the _colours_ we wear. For Christ's sake. I think you need to apologise again."

She did.

"S' better. Now since you've been so helpful assisting me with my purchase, I wonder if you'd do me a favour and help me get my items here out to my car. I don't know how we're gonna carry this cart out of the side window. Don't you ever open the doors?"

Shepard shook her head again, trying to understand what he wanted. Was he really just here to take her drinks?

"I guess not. You wanted to keep this little cave all to yourself. Smart. So, bag girl, what do we do? You got some little plastic bags for me?"

She had to think about it. There were some plastic carry bags in the stock room, but it just seemed too ridiculous to say so out loud. "I've got a couple of bags you can use," she said, remembering her old travel gear. "In the bedroom."

"Yeah? How did you get a _bed_ through that little window?"

"Wasn't easy."

"I'll bet." He raised the gun again and made another little motion. "Well let's get going."

--

With a grunt, Shepard heaved her body out of the window and onto the ladder they had set up. The operation required much more effort than usual due to the heavy, clinking rucksack on her back. Jay stood beneath her, watching with one hand on his Kessler. "That's nice," he pointlessly said. She was irritated his inaction now, but had to remember that he had carried more than half of the bottles in the other bag.

The ladder shook a little just before Shepard reached the ground and Jay secured it with a palm. When she stepped off the bottom rung, she began to wonder if it was worth moving the ladder now she was done. Now that the Mart had been discovered, by the Reds of all people, it wasn't safe. She wondered if her blue-dyed visitor intended to make the building some sort of base of operations or just loot it for all it was worth. Either way she guessed it was Tenth Street property now.

Jay beckoned her and they walked into the parking lot, leaving the ladder alone. Rage at Jay, herself, the salarians and the Union Station force field melded together until she began to enjoy the feeling. It felt good to be focused on something other than the shame. The hate was something to hold onto.

After a while she realised they had been walking in circles. They had circuited two rows of parked cars twice now. Another of Jay's little jokes, perhaps. Now they were actually backtracking as he stared at the cars and scratched his neck.

"So which is your car?" she asked, allowing a little irritation into her voice. The fear of Jay had faded a little now that they were in the open air. The growing anger inside her helped her confidence too. She had _lost the Kost Mart_. It was like losing a friend.

"I haven't decided yet," Jay answered with a cartoon grin. "Reckon I like the Merc. Wonder who thought it'd be a good idea to park _that_ in the slums?"

Shepard lost control for a moment. She told herself it was because the bag on her back was heavy. "If you were going to steal a car, why didn't you just say so?" she snapped, almost loud enough to be heard. "What was the point of that pretence? Why do you have to…?"

The anger vanished, driven from her by the cathartic outburst. She wasn't exactly scared anymore. It was nice. Jay himself seemed a little bit amused.

"Yeah, okay Shepard. I thought it was funny. Guess not. Listen, I'm starting to like you again… I'll take the Merc."

Dropping his smile, Jay became a different person and fiercely slammed his elbow into the glass of the window. She noticed that the joint stuck out a little. Those arms were thin. No wonder he relied on the use of weapons for intimidation.

The bony elbow bounced off the window, succeeding only in shaking the sleek, silver car a little. He tried again, harder and screaming, but again he achieved nothing. Simultaneously Shepard's ears were assaulted by the shriek of the car's alarm system and a series of inventive curse words, barked without finesse. The noise and the uncontrolled animal aggression scared her, and her face became hot. She wanted to step back a little but couldn't without incurring Blue Jay's wrath.

In an instant, Shepard activated her omni-tool and watched the flickering orange display appear above her forearm. Waving her arm near the car door, she searched until she heard a satisfied _bleep._ Then it was a simple matter of holding her arm steady as she ran a standard decryption and typed in a code she had memorised long ago.

The door of the Mercedes shot open too fast, smacking Shepard's midsection and making her jump a little. As his eyebrows raised and his comedic façade returned to him, Jay ducked into the car and quickly stopped the alarm. As his lean face reappeared he eyed the girl quizzically.

"Well now," he said, putting on a little British accent to amuse himself. "Who did you nick that little beauty from?"

She preferred not to remember how she acquired it. Looking down to escape his soft eyes, she deactivated the tool.

"You really know how to use that thing, don't you Shepard? Made me look pretty foolish just now."

"Yeah. I've can use it." She was half-lying. Simple decryptions were about all she remembered. She could break locks but the higher functions of the device were more of a mystery all the time. Before Glendale, she had been a wizard with it. She continued to exaggerate. "I've had a lot of practice."

"Yeah, like you practice fist-fighting and climbing up buildings. So _that's_ what you do all day! Here I was thinking you just sunbathed and drank." Jay closed the door with too much force. "You want to help me out again, Shepard? Wanna stay on my good side?"

Now she did back off. Just two steps.

"It's cool, little lady. You can go home if you want. I can't guarantee I won't be back tomorrow to purchase some more of your fine goods, but I already decided I'm not gonna hurt you. It's just, we Reds got an arrangement. We stay good to each other. I've got some jobs I could use…"

"_Just thieving,_" Shepard said, loud enough to shut him up."_Just breaking locks. _I'm not a dealer and I'm not a killer."

"How old are you?"

Shepard automatically felt offended and furrowed her brow before she got hold of herself. "Sixteen," she told him flatly.

"That's about what I thought. See, I don't need a sixteen year-old girl to help me deal and keep the peace. So you can relax. But I got some jobs for you and your gizmo, if you're interested."

The two looked at each other for a while, figuring out their positions. Shepard felt her throat become dry. She had some experience with gangs. There were no fond memories. But the occasional lock-picking would be easy enough for her. That was no problem. But she couldn't get over that she was so close to losing the Kost Mart. There had been someone _inside_. She didn't even hear him come in. It must have been when she was on the roof.

"Do I get to keep the market?" she blurted out. If the Reds became too much for her to handle, she could always get out of Arizona. She could always move on.

"Shit, I don't want it. I live in a _house_. But like I said, Reds look after each other."

With a sigh, Jay opened the back door of the car and hauled his zip bag of alcohol onto the seat. Shepard automatically started to slacken her shoulders in order to drop her bag, but the man stopped her with an outstretched palm.

"You keep that one. I'm going to take these as a gift from you to me. Because you hit me real hard and I don't really believe you _meant_ that apology you gave me earlier."

Now Shepard's brain was racing and her guts were coming back to her. Jay's little jokes and antics had worn off his ability to frighten her. Maybe she could work alongside this guy after all. She had done worse things in her time than a little gang run. Once or twice.

"I didn't mean it," she said. It felt good to stand up to him, but her throat was still a little uncomfortable. Relaxation began to wash over her. She swallowed dryly.

"Okay," said Jay. "That's how it ought to be." He smiled to himself and hid the gun under his clothes as he climbed into the car, obviously thinking something over. Eventually he lowered the window and leaned his head out of it. "We'll be in touch!" he said, then laughed as if it were funny.

The car revved loudly and drove away. Shepard remained still, holding the bag of drinks by the handles and breathing slowly. After a few moments she heard the idiot skid around a corner and she dropped the bag to the floor. It rattled a little but she didn't notice.

Suddenly feeling an intrusive itch on her right eyebrow, she scratched it hard. She smiled a little as the irritation disappeared, then picked up the bag and turned around. That ladder was still against her window. It looked conspicuous.


	4. January 7th 2167

**Chapter Four**

**January 7****th**** 2167**

-

Raindrops fall slowly onto the ground. They are heavy and wet, making a funny splashing sound as they hit the floor below. Shepard is holding out her left arm. An illogical memory at the back of her head tells her not to. You shouldn't operate machines out in the rain. She remembers Ray yelling at her for playing in the rain and fixing up navigator boxes outside.

But she knows this time it's okay. Not all omni-tools are waterproof, but hers is. Hers is safe to be worn up to fifty feet underwater. It won't actually work underwater, of course. But it won't break.

It's top of the line. She is very happy with it.

So far her little arm has been held out in the rain for five minutes. The limb is starting to hurt in two places but it amuses her terrifically to see the fat droplets falling through the orange hologram. She is trying to figure out if the drops really are distorting the orange lines a little bit as they pass through or whether it's her imagination. It could be an optical illusion, she thinks, and she really _wants_ to see the lines distort. She's probably fooling herself. She does that sometimes.

When she eventually gets bored with this game, she walks over to the front door of the garage and presses some buttons on the bright display. The door makes a supplicant beep and opens for her. When she has walked inside she presses the same buttons and the door closes. The latch snaps shut. This is wonderful. She can lock and unlock the door without touching it. She will never touch that door again.

The omni-tool cost her a lot of money. Now, after two weeks of not touching the door, she has finally come to consider it a mistake. But she doesn't want to dwell on that. Everyone makes mistakes, and she still isn't ready to think negative thoughts. She has had enough unpleasantness and she isn't doing very well running the garage by herself.

Ray didn't have any insurance because he wasn't expecting to get sick. But his money passed to Shepard, so she had a big lump sum. More than half has gone on the omni-tool, though. She used to justify it to herself by saying that the tool would help her make repairs. It did make some work quicker and she has learned to use most of its functions, but she still isn't making enough to pay the rent. Nobody wants to entrust their repairs to a little girl. Not even the regulars and Ray's friends. In truth, she can't blame them.

Thinking about things like the rent and finding work is too hard. She isn't ready for it. She's been under a lot of pressure and it's too much for her. She shouldn't have to do this. It's completely unfair. These were things Ray took care of. Now she appreciates how well he looked after her a lot more, but she doesn't want to think about that either.

As she sits down to eat her salmon, she can't quite convince herself that it is appetising. She holds a knife and fork, her omni-tool still switched on, but doesn't want to eat. It is cold now. The speckled white and grey rivulets of fat sitting on top of it look awful. On top of it all, this particular fish now serves as a morbid reminder of her old employer. She doesn't know why she thought it would be a good idea to buy some. She can't afford it anyway.

Sometimes she acts her age and accepts these things. Buying that salmon was a ridiculous idea and she had known it from the start. The omni-tool was a colossal waste of money, and there was no way in hell she could run a repair shop by herself. When she thinks like this, thinks clearly, everything seems very straight-forward and easy. But it never lasts. She finds herself distracted too easily, or she eventually has to sleep and when she wakes up it's all gone. Taking a bath makes her feel good, but she gets dirty again soon.

The mental clarity has already dissipated now. Once again, she is alone and without anyone to tell her what to do next. She doesn't know how long she will be living here, or where she should go or who she should ask, and it scares her. She wishes she had never left the Landing. Maybe they would take her back. Maybe not. She presses the buttons without looking at them and the lock slides open again.

When she is outside, Shepard tries a new trick. What if she were to cup some water from a puddle in her hand and drop it onto the orange hologram? Would anything happen? Maybe the light will reflect off the water, or something, and it will look twisted, like in those funny mirrors. She tries it but nothing impressive happens. The water just pours through. It glistens a little, like liquid gold, and it looks nice, but nothing else happens. Never mind. The tool has tons of other uses. According to the lengthy instruction list, this model is similar to the devices that soldiers and colonists are issued with. She thinks these people are lucky to be given such a great toy for free. The thought makes her smile a little.

A thought from her subconscious finds voice in an absent mumble. Maybe she can get another job working for a mechanic? That would be good. Well, it would be boring, but she would have someone to look after her. She liked that about Ray. Some of the people at the Landing looked after her too, but never enough.

She hadn't known Ray for long, so it seems wrong somehow that she misses him this much. She thinks she is dwelling on it too much. Sometimes Shepard forgets Ray is dead and calls his name when she is cooking or trying to fix the one job she has left. She isn't doing very well with it.

This is all much too hard. She wants to go far away. Wants to make a big move and start a new life. She is aware that she is thinking childishly again. She has to grow up, but it would be nice to start again. _Again_, again. She has been a kid in the Landing and she has been a mechanic here. And she was good at being both of those things, but she wants to be something else now instead. If only she knew what, things would be okay. She wants to move again. This time she wants to see another part of the country. Maybe she could go South and watch the people there. She likes getting to know people, learning about them. A new set of people would be good.

And then Shepard has the best idea she has had all day. It makes her laugh to think of it and mentally chastise herself for not having realised sooner.

Concentrating more than is necessary, she gently lowers her arm to the ground. As the holographic mesh glove hits the puddle, it refracts and shoots off at weird angles. The display is mostly two dimensional.

Success! She tries to press a few buttons but nothing happens. She's just putting her fingers in the water. It doesn't matter; she has made the omni-tool display look funny. Fantastic. In an instant she grows tired of the activity and switches the device off. She would've had to switch it off before she went to bed anyway. She likes to rest her head on her hands at night.

Shepard decides to go back inside. It's cold and she's getting tired. She will find something to do for a while until she is so exhausted that sleep is her only option. She is good at killing time. As she comes back through the door she has to reactivate the omni-tool in order to close the door. It is a pain, but once she is done she switches it off again for good.

After running a bath, Shepard starts crying. The convulsions stop after a while and she gets a hold of herself. She's really scared and there is no-one who has tried to help her. It's her own fault. They all think she's so _smart _and_ mature_ that she can take care of herself. It used to be true, but now she is really stuck. The depression fades soon and she bathes a little longer.

She will try and find a job with another mechanic. If she can't, she'll try some other town. When she gets settled, she will be fine and she will have a new boss and new friends. A new adventure.

That's the best thing to do.


	5. Good People

**Chapter Five**

**Good People**

–

"Feels awful strange going into a job with a couple of teenagers," Gina Nash mused, leading her two accomplices through Glendale's heaving mid-evening multitude. "Still… I guess we're getting 'em while they're young, huh?" She glanced back at Shepard but received no reply, so she gave up and concentrated on moving forward. They had to push and weave in order to pass through the tired, miserable crowd, but it was second nature to all three.

Nash was an easy foot taller than either of the others so it was little wonder she felt uneasy. At times she seemed to stoop for no other reason than to feel less like the only grown-up in the group. She had a pasty complexion and naturally deep red hair, cropped short but hanging over her unique face. Her raincoat concealed a thick armoured vest and similar pieces, stripped from an old police hardsuit and strapped to her knees and arms. Between her and Shepard was a cocky young man named Finch, whose voice and demeanour irritated both of them. They were trying not to talk to him.

Shepard stayed behind, silently glancing around and saying little. She knew that she was needed only to unlock doors, as the boy was the muscle and Nash had everything else under control. She didn't like working in a group and not knowing the overall purpose of the job, or 'mission' as she preferred to call it. Until now her occasional work with the Reds had consisted of short, quick thefts in places Jay had directed her to, usually via the communicator in the Kost Mart. It paid surprisingly well, allowed her to keep her cherished home and gave her a sense of purpose. To her surprise she was beginning to like her new life, but now she was being led around by a stranger and having to listen to the endless boasting of Finch, whose name drifted in and out of her memory.

"Hey Nash," he started up again. "You think I'm gonna need to use this thing today or what?" He flashed a sleek-looking red pistol in the air, in clear sight of the passers by. They did not react, but the manoeuvre still earned Nash's attention.

"Put it away, kid. Calm down. Have you been dustin' or something?"

The youth exhaled sharply as he hid the weapon. He was older than Shepard by a few years, but she still preferred to think of him that way. "Hells yes!" he enthused. "But not today. Got to keep a clear head. Don't wanna miss."

Nash flicked her head back again and gave him a charitable glance. "Oh that's right. You're the kid who never misses, aren't you?"

"Never takes me more than one shot to kill a man," he beamed. Shepard immediately doubted him. She had discovered in the two weeks that the Reds' reputation was a little excessive. More than anything they were known as thieves. It was hard to imagine their youngest members regularly participating in gunfights.

"One-Shot Finch!" he exclaimed. "That's what they're calling me now. One-Shot Finch."

"Great," Nash said. "Great. Yeah I don't think you'll need to prove that today, but just in case, have that thing ready. Okay sweetheart, I need you now. Get up here and open the door."

Shepard understood she was being addressed and looked up. They had reached an apartment building. Luckily the lock was very simple; nothing that would prove too tricky and embarrass her in front of their experienced guide. As she approached the weather-browned keypad she discreetly activated her omni-tool, hiding it under the fold of her jacket, and decrypted the lock. She opened the door slowly and silently, revealing only a dark doorway, a wooden staircase and an old elevator.

"Nice work, sweetie," Nash whispered. It made Shepard feel better about the mission, but she still had no idea what they were here for. She stepped inside and the others followed, Finch closing the door behind him.

As if hearing her thoughts, Nash stepped forward and explained everything. This was a routine break-in. The owner of apartment D-15 had made the mistake of borrowing more than he could pay back from a friend of Nash's and a fellow Red. Now she had a mind to perform a little repossession. Nothing more than taking the valuables and going home. It had become a three man operation on the instruction of someone called Mister Cross, who Nash assured them was not to be disobeyed.

Having told the tale, the older thug gave half a smile to her charges and glanced at the stairs. "They look creaky," she muttered for the youngsters' benefit. Shepard silently concurred and waited for her leader to call the elevator. It arrived immediately, which she interpreted as a good sign, and they moved in.

"You're awfully quiet," Nash told Shepard, before adding, "by comparison at least."

"Yeah," she replied, unsure what to say. "Always have been." Perhaps that wasn't strictly true, but it was the best reply she could think of.

Nash tutted. "You're too young to be saying 'always have been' to me. You need to cheer up a little. Then again, being quiet's a good quality for someone in our line of work."

Shepard gave a brief, genuine smile and Nash left it at that. For the remainder of the journey she busied herself asking Finch about himself, yielding more results than she could deal with. When the lift doors opened she held up a hand to silence him. One or two people were on this floor, scuttling between rooms. Holding her head down as if out of respect, Nash made her move away from them, hoping she was heading in the right direction to pass apartment fifteen. As it happened they found it without being seen. Shepard ran the same decryption she had used earlier to get in and slid the thin door open. Her ears had told her that the room was empty, but Finch's gun leapt through the doorway nonetheless with Finch himself attached and following it soon enough.

"That's what I like to see," Nash said, eyeing the apartment's reasonable selection of valuables and assessing how much she could carry. "Empty apartment with an entertainment system and a wallet on the dresser. Hey kid, you check the rest of the rooms. Don't take anything for yourself. Bring it all back in here. And… Shepard? Is that right?"

She nodded.

"Good. You get the bags open and start unplugging, okay?"

Ten happy, efficient minutes later, the trio returned to the elevator car carrying two stylish yet inconspicuous black bags. The apartment had been properly looted but left tidy and otherwise undisturbed. Nash explained that this would let the owner know his account was settled. The deep, syrup chuckle Nash gave made the situation seem funny and Shepard laughed with her.

The walk away from the scene was a fast one but once they were away Nash eased her bag to the street and took Jay's from him. "Another day's work done," she announced, stretching her arms. "Good and clean, no witnesses and we didn't even break the lock. You two are good people. I'll need one of you to help me carry this stuff to a fence." Without giving them time to volunteer she selected Shepard. "And I'll see you around," she told the young man, giving a respectful nod.

"Okay. Send my share over to me, all right?"

"You'll get it. See you soon"

The man gave a nod and a little two-fingered salute before leaving the others in peace. He had been a pain and both of them knew it.

As she picked up her bag again, Nash spoke to herself in one breath. "Ah, to be young again…" She looked well under forty to Shepard, but she understood the taller woman's meaning.

"So," she continued. "Now we have another lady thief in the group." Nash spoke with a curious kind of confidence. Her voice was rich and sad. Her smile was only visible on her left side but it was genuine and showed whenever she used one of these odd little turns of phrase. "How d'you like working with us?" Nash's tone and old-fashioned Southern drawl made a career with the Tenth Street Reds sound very pleasant and non-threatening. Kind of romantic, even.

"I like it!" she said honestly.

"Good. Have you run with a gang before?"

Shepard smiled broadly to hear one of the Reds dare to use the word 'gang' and not a euphemism. It seemed to convey a certain maturity that the other Reds she had met did not possess. "Yes," she answered. "Not for long."

Nash seemed surprised and a tad alarmed. Her eyes moved right to meet the girl's.

Realising that Nash may have misunderstood, Shepard explained. "In Colorado, I mean. Never with the Arizona gangs."

"That's good."

"A couple of years ago."

"That's fine. That's good. No wonder you know what you're doing. You're quiet, fast. You know how to use that omni-tool too. Glad to know ya."

They continued walking and chatting for some time with Nash leading the way down streets familiar to them both. The conversation became easier with time, and grew to be a fun comparison of the many things the two had in common. This evolved into a macabre competition to see whose life had been the most difficult, which Nash won. Still they laughed as Shepard related her nomadic past, her long periods of homelessness and some of the bad decisions she had made. She even mentioned her abandonment by her parents. Nash countered every point by giggling through tales of her own parents' deaths, her spots of jail time and the murder of her colonist fiancée by batarian slavers. It was a cathartic experience for both, and they were glad of it.

"You mean the batarians came down to Earth to take slaves?" Shepard asked, forgetting her shyness. The thought was terrifying.

"No, my man was in space. Trying to build up this colony near Shanxi. He was, you know, an _idealist_. One day the four-eyed monsters come down and decide to take slaves. My man didn't like the idea so they shot him into pieces."

The horrible story weighed on Shepard's thoughts, but Nash and the conversation remained upbeat. Moving away from this particular memory, they steered the talk to another of Nash's stories. They both fell quiet though when they entered a quiet alley and saw a slumped over body in their path. The smog-laced air was dark, but they could see the still figure's skin was blue.

"Would you look at that…?" Nash mumbled. "First time I've seen an alien in Glendale." She sounded disinterested by the asari but Shepard fell silent, her mind engulfed by a moral dilemma.

They continued walking at the same speed. If the asari was wounded then Shepard knew they would not stop to help. Non-humans were almost universally loathed in the megatropolises. Even more so in the South and particularly by the Reds. But if the asari needed help, Shepard didn't know if she could just leave her there. Her mind raced, scrabbling for alternatives that would allow her retain her conscience without jeopardising her standing with the gang.

Perhaps the asari didn't need help? Perhaps Shepard could discreetly call for an ambulance later on. Perhaps she was _dead_. She was not moving, so it was possible. As she considered it, she sighed with relief then caught herself. What was she thinking?

Nash did slow when they reached the body, but only to kick its smooth, feminine face hard. Shepard yelped.

"Sweetie, it's already dead. Relax."

That horrible, sickly feeling of guilty relief hit Shepard again, manifesting as an emptiness in her stomach. She needed to get away. She needed to leave. As if to aggravate her, Nash kicked the body again before she set off walking. Shepard followed her after a few moments, but only after she had bravely stared at the aged asari's face. Black dirt from Nash's boot stained the pretty, round nose. One of her luxurious violet eyes was closed and the other stayed open. Her neck was twisted a little further than it should be, presumably by her killer. A dark thought came to Shepard.

"Gina… is thi… did _we_ do this?"

Nash laughed, but only out of habit. The younger woman's discomfort was visible and was affecting her. She stopped walking away and came back, shaking her head.

"Not ours. We aren't big enough to do this kind of thing."

Shepard nodded and breathed.

"Not yet," Nash added quietly, talking to herself this time.

The look of concern on Nash's face grew. She put a hand onto Shepard's thin shoulder and spoke more softly.

"What's up? It's an alien. And we didn't even kill it."

"It… she's an asari," was all the younger girl could say.

"Not anymore it's not. Look, whoever _she _was, she made the mistake of leaving the big cities. Should've known her kind aren't welcome here. Should've stayed in outer… goddamn space where they belong."

Shepard offered no further complaint so they moved out of the alley and into a brighter street. She was glad of the relief and hoped she could forget about the incident. Shepard had a talent for forgetting about things like this. She had seen worse, and she was no defender of non-human visitors to Earth, preferring to see both sides of this particularly controversial subject. Her efforts to distract herself were working until Nash spoke again. Her smile was gone now, but she displayed no aggression.

"You're awfully sympathetic toward the Thing From Beyond the Stars back there. Look, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to upset you, Shepard. Thought you'd kick it with me."

The statement surprised Shepard. "No," she stammered. "No, I…" She could see no logic in Nash's thinking. She had never hated anyone _that_ much.

"All right," Nash said sharply. "Forget it."

Now there was no way Shepard could put this matter aside. She would not dare to question Nash's beliefs or her behaviour, especially knowing how much she had lost to the batarian slavers. But Shepard had to make up her own mind on this one if she intended to sleep tonight.

"It's just…" the girl began. "She was an _asari_. I'm sorry, I'm over-reacting. Asari are different. If it were a turian or a…" She stopped herself from using the word 'batarian'. Shepard had no love for either of those two species, and she was certainly not alone. Hardly a soul on Earth blamed the First Contact War on the Alliance's over-eager activation of a Mass Relay. It was the fault of the turian Hierarchy and everyone knew it. The turians were seen by almost all the population as bloodthirsty pirates and favourites of the Citadel Council. Although she had no personal connection to the War, Shepard agreed completely with the popular opinion in this case. It was an appalling act to declare war on a species making an honest mistake, and the fact that not only the Hierarchy but also the Alliance had been forced to pay reparations afterwards seemed ridiculous. It was inhuman.

"If it were a _turian_ I wouldn't have said anything…" she explained.

Refusing to leave the matter alone now, Nash immediately answered her point with a long-ago rehearsed reply. "I can see your point, Shepard. But you're wrong about that first part. Asari aren't _different_. They're all aliens. They all live in the same space station, they're all under the same government. They all club together."

They kept walking in silence, Nash frowning and Shepard deep in thought, running the other's words over in her mind. She found herself thinking about her own attitudes towards non-humans for the first time in years, and wondering why she suddenly didn't want to use the word 'aliens'. Sometimes when she was under pressure like this she found herself using the longer, politically correct term.

"There seem to be two kinds of people these days," Nash continued. "People that want to club together with the aliens so we can enjoy all the fancy technology, and people who just want to be _left alone._ You know what I mean, Shepard?"

Shepard felt much better. "Yeah, I do," she said.

Just like that, the tension between the two was gone. The conversation kept the same subject, but they were both respectful and tried to be objective. When they came close to a large apartment complex Nash dropped her bag and asked Shepard to do the same.

"Thanks for your help," she said, wiping her brow. "My fence is inside. I'll take it from here and get Blue Jay to send you your cut. He knows where to find you, right? Oh and I'll let Mister Cross know that you and One-Shot What's-his-name are up to scratch."

Shepard smiled and nodded but she was reluctant to part with the older thief. This had been the first time since joining the Reds that she had met someone she respected and whose company she enjoyed. The little discussion of inter-species politics was even enjoyable. Or at the least, it had given her a lot to think about.

Asking people questions and listening carefully had always been one of Shepard's skills. She knew how to get information out of people, and her first impression of someone was always accurate. There was something that had been puzzling her about Nash.

"Your fiancée…" she began, despite being quite afraid to offend her by raising the subject.

Showing her quiet strength, Nash smiled again. "Mike," she corrected.

"Why did he leave the planet? It seems like you and him wouldn't want to go into space. I'm sorry I just… just curious."

"Yeah, well we always disagreed about that. He wanted to colonise worlds and make humanity strong. He lost family in the War, so. He didn't want the aliens to start shooting us up again next time they get upset. So he went out into the black for a while and the aliens killed him. Now I stay here. I prefer it when _they_ stay up there."

It made sense, but Shepard still felt it was too harsh. Her opinions on non-humans were sketchy and mixed, but she had a soft spot for the asari. They were pretty. However, she refused to judge the actions or opinions of someone who had been so personally affected by the batarian slaving operation and the First Contact War.

"Do you think it's a good thing that we have an embassy in the Citadel now?" Shepard asked quietly. She wanted to learn all she could about this wonderful woman but she was running out of questions.

"Uh… I think it's good we have some pull with the aliens. I'd sure hate to live in their home, but it's good that we have someone close to them. And, you know…" Nash looked to the ground for a moment. "… It's _good_ that we're colonising. It is. We need to be spread out and we need the same technology as they have. Better, as soon as we can. That's the only good that came out of the War. We learned we have to be ready for those bastards. We learned not to go around exploring new places without bringing enough firepower to back ourselves up. We have to be stronger, stand up for ourselves. I'm sick of talking about this."

Shepard gave her a grin and turned away. As she rounded the corner she thought she heard some approving murmur from Nash but that could have been wishful thinking. It had been a surprisingly long walk, and she would have to make the same journey in reverse before she could bathe and get some sleep. Being away from the Kost Mart in the afternoons made her appreciate it more when she returned.

Perhaps it was a good thing that the War had taught humanity to get tough. Maybe there was no advantage to it at all. Shepard had no idea and didn't see the need to decide. She had enough to worry about, and aliens never went beyond the big cities. Now she knew why.

It was impossible not to feel sorry for that dead asari, but Shepard knew she was strong enough not to spend and time wondering what would happen to her body. She would just take a different route home and think about other things. For one, she had money now. It would be nice to spend it on some new clothes or some real, fresh food. Perhaps tomorrow she might, for the first time in a long while, go shopping.

Wondering when she would next be called upon by the gang, the girl hummed a little as she walked.


	6. February 1st 2168

**Chapter Six**

**February 1****st**** 2168**

–

Travelling has not been as much fun as Shepard imagined. Since leaving the garage behind she has lived in five in three different states. They are all the same and she is bored.

She has managed to pay for her travel and sometimes a room with the money she inherited, but she's running out now. The problem is that nobody wants to employ her for any job because of her age. If she's honest, she could have tried much harder to get work but she is worried about losing her independence. She wants to try waitressing but no-one wants her. She's too young and she needs to have some sort of permit. She doesn't want to fill in forms. She's fine as she is.

Shepard still hasn't quite come to terms with the responsibility. Now she has grown up a little and seen the world, so it's up to her to fix all these problems and fill in all the forms. She knows all of this, but she just doesn't care anymore. She has given up. So she sits in a town she doesn't even know the name of, somewhere outside Denver because the cops in Denver do a sweep at nights to stop people sleeping on the floor. They're trying really hard to make the city look nice, so she isn't welcome.

Now she wraps her arms around her sweaty legs and chews a piece of gum she's had in her mouth all day. It is starting to fall apart. It won't stick together anymore and she keeps having to mould the abused white substance back together with her tongue. Maybe if she keeps this up she can completely turn it into powder. Perhaps that wouldn't work, but she could probably chew it so much that is actually disappears. She could actually _consume_ a tab of gum.

Though it terrified her at first, living freely and without anyone in her life has a strong appeal. Sometimes she really wishes she had someone to talk to. Frankly, she is now old enough to have a boyfriend. She's missing out on all of that because of her lifestyle. But then, she wouldn't even know what do to with a boyfriend if she had one. She doesn't want one.

"Excuse me, miss…" says a gentle voice. It reminds her of Julie, one of the staff at the Landing. Her favourite because she cared the most. Tried the hardest.

Looking up, Shepard sees pale blue eyes, but they are surrounded by smooth skin the exact same colour. She involuntarily blinks and shuffles back slightly, then worries about what the asari woman will think of her.

"Uh…" she stammers. "Hi. Uh, hi!"

The asari backs off a little with a cute, embarrassed half-smile. She is young, or rather, she _looks_ young. Shepard knows little about aliens, but she has read somewhere that the asari can live to be more than a few hundred years old. This visitor could be any age at all.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but… are you all right?" the asari asks. From a less sincere face this might have seemed patronising to Shepard, but she is warmed by the question. "You seem to be on your own. Are you… do you live here?"

The girl is currently sat underneath the sheltered door of a barber's shop. The idea of living there is strange, so her imagination wanders off with the concept for a moment. Finally she tells her visitor no.

"My name is Hel'alia," says the bald, blue woman. "I'm a stranger here." No kidding.

"I'm Shepard." She holds out a hand and receives a strangely enthusiastic shake from the alien. She starts to chew her gum a lot faster, shredding the weakened substance.

Hel'alia frowns in the sweetest way then says, "I don't know enough about your people to attempt any kind of subtlety here. You seem very young and you're alone here at night. I'm worried about you."

Shepard feels a little kinship with the stooped-over asari. She has never met a non-human before, so she is just as lost in the conversation. "Thanks," she says, embarrassed. "But I'm okay. I get by, that is."

"Are you homeless, Shepard?"

"Uhm."

"I'm not trying to embarrass you. I apologise."

Shepard holds out a hand. "It's okay. Yeah I'm on the streets at the moment…"

Hel'alia kneels now so they are at eye-level. Her skin is so smooth it doesn't quite look real, as if she is made out of felt. Shepard becomes very aware that there are tiny scraps of gum stuck to her teeth. She closes her mouth and tries to clean her teeth using her tongue. It's not easy.

"Shepard, I don't like this. You shouldn't be living like this. You must be cold. Here…"

The asari takes off her outer garment; it is too strange a design to be called a jacket. Shepard doesn't even recognise the material it is made from. No-one has offered her something like this before. Not a stranger anyway. The asari is too nice for hew own good. "No, please…" she says. "I can't…"

"Nonsense."

"No, it wouldn't." She gives up tact. "Some of the folks here can be pretty rough. I think it would get me… in trouble… but thanks. Really, thanks. I'm okay."

"Oh," Hel'alia says. "Would it get you in trouble because it's not a human style? I see. Well then …" she puts the jacket back on, makes herself comfortable and starts talking. For half an hour the two of them stay there talking. About the business that had brought Hel'alia to Denver, about how Shepard got by, about Denver itself, about where Shepard's next meal was coming from…

It feels wonderful to have somebody concerned about her. It is also a strangely fun experience to simply look at an alien directly, rather than on a screen or as a hologram. In the shade her skin isn't so striking. Aside from the dotted little ridges on her head, she looks exactly like any other person. She looks a little bit like Julie, in fact. Small galaxy.

Eventually the conversation dries up, and there are awkward smiles. Hel'alia likes Shepard now. Because of this rather than her earlier pity, she gives the girl some money. It's sixty credits and she actually apologises that it isn't more. Hel'alia must be loaded.

"I can't take this. It's not right…"

"You are a child, Shepard, on the street at night. You can take it. Please. It will break my heart if you don't."

Shepard believes she isn't exaggerating, or at least not much. It feels bad, but she takes the money. It will really come in handy.

"Good," Hel'alia says. "That's that. Now, I don't want you sleeping here tonight. You are a little stubborn… how can I convince you to come with me?"

It bothers Shepard a little to be called 'stubborn'. No-one has called her that since Illinois. People tend to think the opposite of her these days. She tells the asari there is no need but it doesn't faze her.

"No, no, no." She is starting to sound like a school matron now, and Shepard is both happy and intrigued to see this aspect of her personality. "There must be some sort of program set up for children in your situation. You can't be expected to survive by yourself. I shan't conduct any more trade with a species who would let their children suffer like this!"

Shepard feels ambivalent but she has to think fast. As much as she would love to let this strange creature help her, she is terrified of what might come after. Her life now is far from ideal, but she likes being in control. And she is going to fix it. To get things right. Things have to get worse before they can get better, but now they're about to get better. For once, she isn't going to waste the money she has been given. She accidentally swallows the flaccid, pathetic remains of the gum and chokes a little.

Hel'alia's soft hand rests on Shepard's shoulder. She isn't trying to hold the girl down. She is just showing her that she cares. The thumb moves back and forth a little, and the caress reminds her of better days. It feels incredible and she doesn't want that gentle hand to ever leave her.

Scrambling for her few belongings, Shepard grabs them, stands and runs. The loud smacks of her soles against the pavement and the insults and cries she hears in her head drown out whatever it is the asari is saying. She doesn't turn her head around until she is sure she has not been followed.

She's free again. She really wants to cry but she doesn't let herself. No more of that. If she's going to live this life then she has to start living it right. When she explores the next town she will be ready for it. She has to be. There are no excuses anymore.

She's going to stand up for herself.


	7. Patches of Red

**Chapter Seven**

**Patches of Red  
**

-

The corner of Tenth Street was deceptively pleasant. The pavements were relatively clean and quiet, and instead of imposing, grey apartment blocks the road was lined with rows of small houses. There were even two trees on the corners, just starting to grow green as the approaching summertime battled the air pollution. Shepard had never been so close to the infamous street. To wander around in a gang's territory was foolish. Of course, now that she was a member she had so such qualms, but she wondered if perhaps she was being watched.

Being without a weapon in this place made Shepard wary, but she had been instructed not to come armed. She told herself she would not need a gun here as her standing with the Reds was good. Her adaptability, stealth and patience made her an excellent thief and she had carried out several missions for the gang in the last two months. With the ever-obnoxious Blue Jay keeping tabs on her, she was offered specific jobs and drop-off points once or twice a week. This allowed her the rest of her time to relax in the Kost Mart, which as promised had not been invaded a second time. It bothered her that Jay knew its location but she trusted the Reds to leave her alone. The first night after his surprise appearance she had not slept but lately she had developed a new sense of calm.

Every house on the street had a shiny, sleek car outside. Most streets were too congested or too unsafe to allow such flagrant behaviour, but this street had developed a reputation. There were three or four street gangs operating in Glendale, and while the Reds had only a modest territory, they had begun to expand into the neighbouring streets. As she glanced quickly and discreetly at the houses, Shepard couldn't help but feel like she was in Phoenix. Clearly the occupants of this small street were rich and confident enough to flaunt it. Aside from the lack of technological advances, this street could easily pass for a nice little part of the big city suburbs.

Shepard was looking for house number seven, belonging to Nathaniel Cross. She knew little of the man beyond his name and that he was important. Now she had his home address, which could only be a sign that she had earned his respect. Normally a meeting like this with a young thief would take place in some dark corner or abandoned building. She found the house quickly at the end of the street and checked the time. She was fifteen minutes early, but it was perhaps better to slightly inconvenience Cross than to loiter on Tenth Street. To stall her arrival a little more, Shepard checked the time again, felt inside all of her pockets and then moved her hand very slowly over to the door bell. She had always preferred to be by herself. Her association with the Reds, with all its benefits, forced her into social situations. Although she was getting better at meeting and dealing with people, this was somewhat different.

The door was opened by a clean, smart young man in a white shirt and tie, looking for all the world like an upmarket junior office worker. He gave her a slightly questioning look.

"It's… my name's Shepard?" she said, wondering who she was speaking to. In reply the man nodded and stood aside for her.

As she passed by him she noticed a pistol tucked into the back of his belt, a sight that strangely put her at ease. Now he looked like he belonged. Presumably he was some sort of personal bodyguard. He coughed in a quiet, polite manner as he closed the door behind her, then pointed into the next room. "This way," he said with a surprising gruffness in his voice. She moved on, admiring the tasteful modern décor of the house. Every gang had its own unique style. Some of them took this to extremes, making themselves deliberate stereotypes or even enforcing uniforms, but the Reds thankfully tended to be reserved in their appearance, favouring smart clothes in private in order to display their wealth, and simple, muted tones while they were working. She had heard Jay refer to his coat and slacks as 'civvies', as if he were a professional soldier.

"Ah, good evening Miss Shepard. I'm Nate Cross," said a crisp, New England accent from behind a door. Due to the formation of the Alliance and widespread online communication, strong accents of any kind had become rare, but Arizona's citizens seemed to exhibit more old accents than most. Shepard liked to hear a distinct voice and hoped they would not die out completely.

"Good evening," she replied, trying to mirror Cross' etiquette as she opened another door and saw his face. He looked to be in his late thirties or early forties and wore a surprisingly understated suit. He held out a hand, which Shepard shook while maintaining eye-contact.

"You're a little early, you know."

"Sorry." He didn't seem upset, but she made a mental note to be more careful with timing on any future visits.

"It's fine. Have a seat."

Shepard found a comfortable leather chair whilst Cross poured himself a moderate serving of some unlabelled brown liquor. When he was done, he sat himself down opposite her, with a small glass table between them. She guessed his not offering her a drink was a symbol of his superior social status, and she shrugged it off. Still, she felt distinctly underdressed and kept wondering if her shoes were clean.

"I wanted to see you for myself, Shepard. I keep hearing good things about you and I wanted to get a look at you." This was a relief. Shepard sat back a little easier. It was good that this man was impressed by her, but she would rather have lived out her career quietly in his shadow.

"Good work bringing in that shipment for us from the space docks," he told her, nodding curtly. As he did he bent slightly to the left to touch a small metal crate by his side. Shepard had not noticed it there, but recognised it as the package he had mentioned. Manipulating the fiddly, disc-shaped opening catch with his fingers, Cross opened the lid and left it resting on its hinges.

"I've got your money for the job here, and a little bonus too," he said with a reptilian smile. He looked like a naughty schoolboy showing off for attention.

Reaching into the box, the well-dressed boss found a small and neatly-bundled stack of credits. Shepard didn't even need the money at this point; the job was paying her more than her extremely simple lifestyle warranted. She wondered if she should try to distance herself from the gang for a while and live on her profits. But then she would miss the adventure and the thrill of it all. It was satisfying to return home and know that her job, even a dishonest one, was well-done. She had missed that feeling.

Shaking her thoughts off, she accepted the money with a quiet 'thanks' and a nod, then slipped it into her pocket. Her eyebrows sank downwards though when Cross returned to his strongbox and came back with a small plastic bag, about fifteen centimetres in length and half that in width, filled with a fine, salmon-coloured powder. She had never seen the substance before, but it was obvious to her what she had stolen.

"This is good stuff, and it was supposed to go to an alien mercenary group. There isn't much in here and it's been cut. Looks dyed, too, but it's still better than some of the shit that gets sold. The only reason I wanted this stolen was so I could make things a little harder for the freaks." With this, Cross swore to himself a little more, apparently angered by the mere thought of aliens taking the drug. When he regained control of his emotions, he threw the bag to Shepard. She caught it instinctively.

"Here you go," he said. "Bonus. Cut, like I say, but you'll like it and it's on the house."

Shepard didn't know how to react to this. Red sand was a popular stimulant and she had known many users in her time as well as one addict. She had always viewed the substance with disinterest and never particularly wanted to partake. Shepard didn't need the hassle of an overly stimulated nervous system. Depressants had always been much more to her taste, and there was a ready supply in liquid form back at the Mart. She took the bag with a faux-sincere 'thank you' and hoped the meeting was concluded.

Unfortunately it was not. Not daring to make her excuses she sat and listened as Cross spoke about himself and the gang. He used vague, open-ended questions, hoping to get her talking and get a measure of her personality. Shepard recognised his technique in attempting to learn about her, and saw no way out but the truth, or at least a garnished version. He proceeded to ask about her history and her skills at decryption. Then he inquired about her shooting aim. She told him she had used guns plenty in the past, which was quite an exaggeration, and that she was a good aim, which was true. When she mentioned the brief period she had spent trying to live in Phoenix he interrupted her.

"Let me tell you something about Phoenix," he said. "I could live there if I wanted to, but you know what? I don't want to be anywhere _near_ those alien-loving sons of bitches. If I moved out there I'd be in jail within a week. They got turians just walking around the streets, spending money they took from our fathers after they slaughtered our fathers' brothers. Just _walking around_. I don't go to Phoenix for any reason, because I know I couldn't walk past an alien without shooting him dead. And I don't want jail."

Shepard nodded, pursing her lips together a little. There was a brief silence as Cross stared her down, looking for a response. She chose not to, hoping desperately that he would not ask for one. Finally he relented and nodded at her, as if acknowledging some hidden message.

"You do good work, Shepard. You keep to yourself, which is okay, and you've got a head on your shoulders."

This sounded promising. Shepard was scared now, and really hoped this meant the interrogation was over. But again he continued to talk, this time congratulating her. When he was done he retrieved another 'sandbag' and slit it open with a stiletto knife he seemed to make appear from nowhere. With the easy grace of a master craftsman he poured a little onto the glass table and used the knife to separate the fine, light powder into lines. "To a good future!" he declared before leaning over and dusting-up.

When his head arched back to the chair he was smiling and once again cursing to himself. Shepard knew it would be expected of her to join him in this bizarre toast, so she clenched her teeth together in frustration. The experience was terrifying, but not because she feared the effects of the drug. Rather the power of the strange, manic boss bothered her, and she was beginning to wonder what she had gotten herself into. She feared the loss of control.

Bending her back, she snorted the pink substance, making an ungainly snoring noise as she did. The sound immediately gave her away as a newcomer to the drug, as she had not picked up the 'art' of taking it delicately, but Cross chose not to mention it. The sense of euphoria hit her fast as the dust shot up through her nostrils and dissolved against the lining of her nose, but it did not last long as it was chased away by ten seconds of paranoia. For a moment she thought she could see patches of red in her field of vision, as if she were looking at the room through a red-spotted gauze. The experience left her with a slight dizziness, but she had to admit that she had enjoyed the initial feeling intensely.

"Not bad at all," Cross said, too loudly, to his bodyguard. Then to Shepard, "Told you!" He laughed to himself as the high seemed to wear off in him.

A small part of Shepard wanted more. She could feel a curious sort of itch building in her right elbow, crawling toward her wrist. She felt her arm warming up and jiggled it up and down a little bit. It felt better, but she wanted more of the sand. She scratched her arm a little, which did nothing, gave up and moved the sandbag Cross had given her into her deepest pocket.

"How d'you like it?"

"It was good," she told him, and it was true. The initial high had been great, but the various after-effects she was still dealing with made her uncomfortable. It had left her with an uneasy lack of control.

"Well you keep helping us out the way you have, and there might be a couple more bonuses in store for you. Listen, there's a job going down tomorrow. Nothing big, but you might be able to help out."

Shepard wasn't listening to him. There was something wrong in her arm, and it was making her panic. Suddenly, she flicked out her wrist to the side. The involuntary seizure felt horrible to her and jerked her head back too. Without wanting to, she curled her fingers into a familiar shape and felt them stiffen. Then she thrust her hand forward and inhaled sharply. The itch that had been building in her left her that moment and her muscles relaxed. It had felt almost like a sneeze.

In the direction her hands had been pointing, Cross' window blinds ruffled as if hit by a sudden breeze. Shepard stared at them, unblinking, while his eyes were firmly fixed on her.

"Well… I didn't know you could do that," he grumbled, still leering at her.

Shepard finally met his gaze, unable to speak for a moment. "I… I've never… I don't know what…"

Cross smiled wetly. "I believe you," he said. "I could tell from your, uh, reaction there! Don't think I've ever seen a biotic so scared, and I've seen biotics beaten to within an inch of their lives!"

Shepard hardly heard him after he got to the word _biotic_. It stuck in her mind and forced her to think about what it meant, forced her to remember a little hobby in her childhood. She had only heard the word used frequently in the last ten years or so, and it was almost always used as an insult. She had heard that biotic abilities were common among the asari and some of the other aliens, and that there was now some sort of third-party training facility set up in space where humans were being trained up. Those humans were about her age, she thought. The Alliance had been recruiting the graduates as super-soldiers. But on the streets, in the South, biotics were unwelcome. She knew Cross was not exaggerating; once she had watched a young man in fancy Alliance uniform dodging stones and litter that was thrown at him, his eye and cheek bruised as he ran limping from an angry crowd. Biotics were modern-day witches who glowed blue and manipulated the elements with their minds. Some said they were alien-lovers and some said they were an affront to God, but everyone agreed they were bad news.

Cross was still looking at her. Shepard shivered, and as she did she began to fear that another involuntary bout of telekinesis was about to happen. It did not.

"Don't worry, girl," Cross said. "Don't worry. I'm not going to harm you. I'm not a bigot."

"I've never done that before," she stammered, still suffering the shock as memories began to flood her mind. Suddenly she felt as if she was lying.

"That's because you've never used sand before," he explained. "It does that to people with your, eh, abilities. Gives you a little charge for a few second, just like those amplifiers they use in the Navy."

Shepard nodded. "But I didn't even know that I could… I mean… I don't…"

Cross interrupted her and she was thankful. "Let me ask you something. How old are you?"

The girl began to relax as a slight frustration came to her. She was sick of being asked that question. "I'm sixteen," she told him.

"Uh-huh. So you were born in…" he mulled it over, clicking his tongue against his gums.

"Twenty-one fifty-four," she answered quickly, hoping to silence the unpleasant sound.

"Uh-huh. That's close enough, I guess… where were you born? Singapore by any chance?"

She knew what he was implying. A few years before her birth, a starship crash in Singapore drowned a spaceport in element zero dust. The tragedy spread cancer and death among the children born afterwards. The lucky ones came away as the first human biotics. She shook her head at the boss. "I don't know. Maybe. Never knew my parents. The orphanage never told me where I was from originally."

"Huh. Maybe not Singapore… there were plenty of other _accidents_, you know. It doesn't matter."

The way Cross emphasised the word 'accidents' suggested he was implying something. Shepard was not surprised. She had heard all sorts of conspiracy theories but never paid them any attention. Until now, she had considered it none of her business.

"I don't know," she said pointlessly.

"Yeah. It doesn't matter. At your age there's no way I can make use of you. Maybe you could take a little sand before a fight, but… I don't know. You know, if your parents had left you with the Navy instead of an orphanage, the soldiers would have implanted you and put you in one of their little torture camps by now. Huh, got lucky. I'd say the best thing for you is to keep this little skill of yours quiet."

Shepard agreed fully with the last statement. Breathing a little easier through her nose, she swallowed some saliva and tried to forget it had ever happened. Having found no personal advantage in Shepard's untrained biotic abilities, Cross lost interest too and cleared his throat.

"I think we're done, Shepard. But as I was saying, I want you to help out with a little job tomorrow night. Do you know the Clarion Hotel on Lee Street?"

"Y… yeah. That's the other side of town, towards Phoenix."

"Yes it is. I want you over there before midnight. There'll be some other folks there too."

Shepard didn't like the sound of this job. What kind of business could the Reds have with a hotel, let alone one so far away?

"Just a little theft," he said, perhaps reading her eyes. The strange meeting had taken its toll on her and left her expressions unguarded. "Meet Gina Nash at, say, eleven forty-five, at the back of the building."

Whether Cross knew it or not, Nash's name was exactly what she wanted to hear. Shepard had developed a trust and a respect for this particular member of the gang after they had worked on two missions together. If Nash was in charge it would be okay, whatever it was.

"Okay," she said, standing up. "I'll be there."

Cross' shirt creased a little as he stood. He brushed it down with his hairy fingers. "Glad to hear it. I'm expecting good things from you. Enjoy the sand, but don't… ah… well make sure you're not stood next to anything fragile!" He laughed coarsely and held out a hand, which Shepard had no choice but to shake. He barely gripped her hand at all, and it was over quickly. With this over, he turned and wandered into another room. Relieved, Shepard made her way to the door, which the bodyguard quietly opened and closed for her.

When she was outside she relished the feel of the cooling air on her face. Immediately she stuffed her hands into her jacket pockets, just in case she should accidentally launch some telekinetic attack in the heart of Reds territory. She walked fast, only slowing down when she was far from the protection of the gang and back in the worst part of the slums. Shepard had walked each of these streets many times. There was nothing to surprise her here.


	8. November 21st 2168

**Chapter Eight**

**November 21st 2168**

-

"Okay…" Shepard whispers. "Okay… oh… kaaaay…"

She has to whisper. If someone heard her playing this game she would look ridiculous. She does look ridiculous, in fact, but she can't think about that now or it won't work.

"No," she says out loud. "Gotta keep a clear head if this is ever going to work." She inhales slowly, worries she is concentrating too much on her breathing, exhales and shoots her arm forward, straightening it. Her fingers curl a little, as if they are gripping a tennis ball. She figures this is the best way to focus the imaginary burst of telekinetic energy. If she packs it into a tight little ball like this, it will be more powerful. Absently she wonders why she thinks this is the case. Has she borrowed that theory from an old cartoon vid she used to watch? It doesn't matter. Silly or not, she's always curled her fingers like this. That's how she does it. And now, if she doesn't curl her fingers there is no chance of it working.

She feels her grip tighten. She slacks it off just a touch, then tightens it a bit more. She is in complete control of her arm. Blinking once, Shepard looks ahead of her to see the soda can, defiantly still stood there.

"Not for long," she murmurs. "You just be ready, soda can. You're going over. You're going _down_. Oh…kay."

The arm pulls back and then thrusts forward. Once again, nothing happens. Damn. It must be because she concentrated too much on her breathing. She's forgetting all about the mental discipline involved. Just making the correct hand motion isn't going to topple the can! The hand and the arm are just a memory aid. It helps her to concentrate.

She flexes her fingers, takes her deep breath and stares hard at the can. This time she isn't going to blink. Perhaps she has been losing her concentration by blinking. That might just be it. Now she thinks about the can. She rehearses the push in her mind. Not just the physical motion, but the generation of the magic energy. The magic field, whatever one calls it. It is going to start off as a tiny crystalline ball in her hand, beautiful and complex, multilayered but not solid. A little gaseous marble of _magic_. From there it will expand, growing more detailed in impossible ways, and then, once she thrusts her arm, it will become a beam of energy and it will fly right at the can. Not because she points at the can or aims well, though she can aim pretty damn well, but because she _wills_ it to hit that can and topple it.

Snapping her arm straight beautifully, she makes her move. For the seventeenth time today, just like every try of every day for the past year, the can remains completely stationary. Sometimes it isn't a can but some other piece of detritus. She has used more items for the game than she can remember. One day one of them will move by her will. One day. With God as her witness…

She realises what she is thinking and bursts out laughing. When her eyes close she falls completely out of the moment. Sometimes Shepard gets bored and takes the telekinesis game much too seriously. As she tries to shake off the temporary belief that she has supernatural powers, she places her hand onto her knee so that she isn't tempted to keep trying. That she has to do this makes her laugh even more. It started off as a way to pass the time but now her attempts to defy the laws of physics have become a daily hobby.

It is a fun game and she enjoys fooling herself, living in a strange magical world for a few minutes. Usually she gets bored of these games after a while. Little fads are common with her, but they wear off eventually and are replaced by something else. Typically though, her little obsessions only fade away once she has mastered them. Of course, she knows she will never actually develop magic powers, so she will have to give this one up voluntarily. Perhaps that's why she has been doing it for so long. She shrugs it off, pulls her blanket from her bag and starts making a bed.

There's no chance anyone will see her here behind the large brick wall, which also works with the roof to shelter her from the elements. The sloped floor feels nice to sleep on too. It's the closest thing to cosy she has found anywhere. The outside ramp of the First Glendale Public Library is the nicest spot to sleep in she has ever discovered, and she is so glad she has it. It would be wonderful if she could only find a way inside the abandoned building and make it a proper home, but there's no way. The windows have been sealed with more bricks and the doorway is bolted shut. The thought is interesting though. She could solve a lot of her problems if she found a way into one of these abandoned buildings some day. It might be worth investigating.

All in all, things are going very well for Shepard. In the last several months she has made an effort to really take hold of herself and make her life as pleasant as it can be. She has made a few mistakes, in particular trying to make a name for herself with a Colorado street gang and then moving South rather than North, but she doesn't dwell on them and she recovers quickly. Nothing hurts her anymore. If things go badly, she just forgets and goes to another city. If she masters something, she moves on anyway. No-one gets too close and she has freedom. It's a good life.

She isn't sleepy just yet though. Unfolding the worn, old blanket she has carefully wrapped around herself, she stands and moves it to one side. Now that her shoulders are above the edge of the bricks, she surveys the street. Even at this time of night it's crowded. She wonders how many more nights she will be able to hold onto her great spot on the library ramp before someone else spots it and takes it from her. She can fight if she has to, and she's learned to fire a pistol with surprisingly good aim too, but she would never fire on a person.

A lone woman, nicely dressed and with deep, rich blonde hair, moves away from the herd and heads to the garbage can next to the library. It's extremely rare for someone to actually use the cans. They aren't even emptied. She might be from out of town, this one, and she seems kind, but Shepard has to forget all of this because she clearly has a purse hanging out of her trousers' back pocket.

Shepard is behind her in half a minute, as much time as it takes the woman to reach the bin and bend over a little to drop her paper food wrapping. As she gets close the young thief detects a pleasant scent from the lustrous, clean blonde hair. She looks down for a second, enjoying the smell. It is hard to tell, but she may be one of the few remaining natural blondes.

_No_, she tells herself, silently this time. _Don't feel sorry for her. She left the purse hanging out. You need it more and she will do fine. Just get it._ And she does, looking at the crowd to see if anyone has noticed her there whilst keeping the woman's head in her field of vision, just in case.

She gets away easily, moves back to the library and drops down behind the wall. The moment she knows she has made it, her heart begins pounding. She has trained herself not to react until she is safe to do so. Inside the wallet is fifteen credits. That's food for three days, more if she rations properly. Shepard can't help but smile to herself. These days she rarely feels guilt at all when she picks pockets. She tells herself that she has no alternative. She _has_ to eat after all, and she has done much worse things to survive back in Colorado. At least those days are over. She doesn't have the gall to actually keep the purse though. She slips the money out and into her own pocket, right at the bottom so it won't show, then decides that tomorrow she will drop the purse in the trash bin. She will be sure to hide it properly so that nobody else finds it and starts using the woman's cards.

She can still feel her heart beating against her chest, but it is slowing now. Normally she spends more time planning a theft. The spontaneity of this grab has made it rather exciting. As she leans back down to relax inside her makeshift bed, she sees the soda can in the corner of her eye. It is shaking a little. She must have either knocked it with the edge of the quilt or else she disturbed it as she ran past in her escape. She smiles, curls her fingers and quickly throws her right arm forward, stiffening it without even trying. She makes no effort to focus her magic powers this time and does not think very hard about it. She just thinks it would be really fun if this once, the can did move. It would be funny.

The can wobbles violently, moving faster than it had been doing, and in the wrong direction. It is still standing, but it is angled slightly and it could easily fall. Shepard feels her body freeze in panic and the can spins around on the smooth, circular bottom rim. She watches this spectacular, terrifying display for what seems like an eternity until finally the can stops moving and rights itself. It shakes back and forth for a millisecond, then stops moving altogether, unyielding as ever.

Shepard is staring at the can now and trying hard to find rational explanations for what just happened. Has she just pushed the can, however slightly, without touching it? Has she actually achieved telekinesis? She knows such things are possible, magic aside. Once she snuck into an Alliance Navy office, just to look around, the day she saw that broken engine and started feeling sick. She read that leaflet about their space station. Is she one of those…?

_No._

That's ridiculous. She furrows her brow in anger and grinds her teeth for a moment. Then she lies down and closes her eyes, refusing to consider the ridiculous notion. When she lunged forward with her hand, she must have pushed the can using the air. She had simply pushed too hard, or been too close, and disturbed the can with a little gust of air.

Her heart is still beating. Now she can almost hear it. She wills it to slow down and it does.

Licking her dry bottom lip, Shepard frantically thinks about other things. Had that woman been a natural blonde? If not, she had dyed her hair both recently and skilfully. Shepard had been close to her hair and hadn't seen any difference in colour at the roots. Shepard wonders what shades her skin and eyes were. She had only noticed the striking hair.

The blanket is comfortable and she feels her body radiating warmth into its folds much more quickly than usual. She uses this to her advantage and makes herself sleepy. She's had a long day and she's made some money. It has been a productive day, in fact. She deserves a good night's rest, while she can hold onto the library ramp. She wishes she could break in. Maybe the books are still there.

Once, when she had lived in Illinois, she had been a member of a library. The day she joined they were in the process of replacing the books with soft copies. The man she spoke to was sad about it and kept saying he wished they could hold onto more of the old books. Shepard had thought the man stupid for wanting to hinder the already sluggish advance of new technology in the megatropolises. She had been a young girl then.

Breathing slowly and remembering the encounter, Shepard starts to drift off. When she yawns without meaning to, she knows she will be asleep soon. The certainty relaxes her fully and makes her smile. Tomorrow she will explore the town some more.

And she won't play that ridiculous game with the tin can ever again. It will go in the trash with the purse.


	9. A Real, Old Fashioned Armed Robbery

**Chapter Nine**

**A Real, Old-Fashioned Armed Robbery**

-

The elegantly-dressed night-porter in the hotel lobby amused and fascinated the shabby-looking girl he had approached. Shamelessly she looked him up and down with the smile of a child looking upon something for the first time. He wore an old-time black suit and tie and had a neat, curly beard and a slightly balding pate. He was shorter than Shepard but his rigid, robotic stance made them seem the same height.

"Is there… something I can do for you, miss?" he asked her, though his tone made it clear enough that there wasn't. The young girl was certainly underdressed, but she had not realised the Clarion was such an expensive, upmarket place. Though they were concealed by a long, black overcoat, her clothes were rags in comparison to this man's. She stopped staring at him and took a step back. It was obvious he meant her no offence but didn't want her wasting his time.

"No sir," she said politely, and she moved away. The porter gave her a little nod, which she took as acknowledging her good form.

Back outside she found a place to stand, away from the door so as not to get in the way as she waited. She was early for her mysterious meeting with Nash and had only been waiting indoors in order to get a little warmer. Only five minutes now, and Shepard was adept at time-wasting. This would be easy.

Never a particularly organised person in private, she made it a point always to appear early to any appointment with another person. She had never failed in this duty, becoming a different person whenever she found herself responsible to someone else. It was a strange quirk which she had never come to fully understand. It wasn't that she was simply afraid of disappointing the other. She held little respect for most people she met and she was quick-witted and agile enough to escape those people for whom respect had lost its meaning. Often she would sit and think about it, trying to be objective and scientific about the lifelong problem.

Every now and again she would feel as if she was getting close, but then some pressing problem would drag her away from her ruminations. She leaned back on the wall of the hotel with a foot or two of plaster separating either side of her from windows, scratching a little lump of paint with a chewed fingernail. Her habit of working harder for others than for herself sometimes made her feel weak, but she was sure it wasn't exactly a _weakness_. She genuinely wanted to help others, and in a self-serving way. It felt like she was after something from them. But what? She could never work that out.

The sounds of a lively conversation drew her attention away from introspection and toward a crowd of four figures approaching in dark clothing like her own.

"Good," she muttered into her collar. "At least I'm dressed right."

One of the taller figures broke off from the conversation and approached Shepard a little faster. Nash had recognised her first, which made Shepard feel good, but when the red-haired thief reached her she unnerved her young protégé with a look.

"Shepard? What are _you_ doing here?" The tone was not of surprise or disappointment but, of fear.

"Uh…" the long-haired girl stumbled. "Cross told me to come here."

"Holy… you met Cross?"

The girl nodded.

"Well… Jesus… unh," Nash seemed surprised, trying to figure something out. "Have you got a gun?"

Shepard blinked. "A _gun?_"

"Shit!" Nash half-whispered. She gritted her teeth then swore some more, loud enough to silence the crowd she had brought with her. After collecting herself she turned back to them and assured them that nothing was wrong. They continued to talk amongst themselves but stayed a few feet behind the two women, aware that something serious was being discussed. "Look, sweetie, you might need to defend yourself on this job. Here," the older thief unbuttoned her thin coat a little, revealing a pistol snugly resting in the inside pocket. "That Cross is an asshole, you know that?"

Shepard completely agreed with her, though she was not brave enough to say so in front of the men. When she looked she could see clearly that two of them were wearing body armour. Nash had on her usual modified pieces of military hardsuit beneath the coat, but that was nothing she hadn't seen before. As she accepted the cold, grey pistol from her occasional mentor she wondered at Nash's swearing. It wasn't like her.

"Yeah well, he is," the older woman told her. "Just hold onto the gun there and stay at the back."

"What's the job?" Shepard asked, her head tilted with mild suspicion.

"Never mind what the job is, sweetie," Nash snapped, taking the other by surprise. "Just stay back. Goddamn it, Cross! What was he thinking? Was he high?"

The girl's first reaction was to defend her usefulness for the mission, whatever it was, but she closed her mouth when she remembered that when he had given her the job, Cross had only just taken some red sand.

"Actually he was."

This admission made Nash laugh a little. After looking to the heavens for strength, she placed a hand on Shepard's forearm by way of apology. Her usual knowing half-grin appeared, but she failed to make eye contact. She turned away and returned to her three men, who were glancing at the Clarion Hotel's main entrance. Two of them had covered their faces with scarves and the other wore a floppy hood over his eyes. Even from this short distance she could make out little beyond their skin-tones. It suddenly struck her that Nash's coat too had a hood on the back.

This meeting was growing stranger by the minute. Shepard thought she ought to be scared by the necessity of a firearm and questioning of Nash's strange behaviour and the scarves, but there was no need. The young orphan did not trust easily, but over the course of a couple of missions together, Gina Nash had managed to bring her out of her shell and win her friendship. Whatever was going on here, it would be okay. Gina was a kind soul who had seen something in Shepard she liked and taken it upon herself to act as her protector. Her charge loved the feeling but equally found a mutual admiration in the tough, thoughtful and considerate woman's demeanour. Their relationship had been further enhanced by a few trips to Stinger's Exit, a Red-friendly bar where the gang tended to congregate. They had been drunk together, played darts and talked long into the night, finding much in common. At the end of their second night at the Exit they had even danced. As a rule, Shepard never danced, so that meant that Nash was to be trusted.

When Nash returned, her friends were examining their guns and stashing them into covert but easy spots about their clothing. Instinctively, Shepard flicked off the safety on the gun she had been lent.

"Shepard, honey, you don't have to do this job. It's not your usual walk-in theft."

This much was obvious. It was nearly midnight and they were out of Glendale. It had been a long walk.

"It's a _real_, old-fashioned armed robbery, you know what I mean? We're going to take the safe money from folks who don't deserve that kind of harsh treatment. It's a serious job." She paused to let Shepard react. "So it's not the stuff that you like to do. It's dirty. There might be fightin', too. Now I know you can handle yourself…" she trailed off, helpless.

Shepard chewed the flesh beneath her bottom lip and stared, thinking about it. It did seem much more serious now, somewhat immoral and certainly not the kind of job she would ever choose to work on. But Nash was here, so it would be okay. Only for the briefest moment did she wonder why a hotel so far away from home had been chosen.

"I'm in," she said, eager to impress her friend.

Nash responded with the arched eyebrows of a proud but worried mother. "I don't want you on this one, honey. I mean, I want you _around_, but this job is… I can't _believe_ Cross put you up to this! His idea of a j…"

The word was never finished as Nash suddenly screamed in pain and crumpled to the ground. The bullet that hit her knee, just above the edge of her concealed armour, made its presence known to Shepard when it passed through the limb and finally clattered to a halt on the dirty concrete below. Nash fell onto the injured leg, then yelped and rolled over.

In the next second the battle began, while every party but the bewildered Shepard and the injured Nash ran for cover and began firing pistols. The sniper who had started the conflict was easy to spot on the balcony of another building. He tried to make himself less of a target by crouching as he lined-up another shot. Meanwhile six other gunmen had made themselves visible by opening fire on the group. The attackers all wore bright Hawaiian shirts and cream-coloured slacks; it made for a snappy gang uniform but terrible night camouflage.

The sniper's second bullet whizzed past Shepard's ear so closely that it felt hot. She got scared, but knew she had to act. Grabbing her borrowed gun she aimed loosely at the sniper and hurled a flurry of shots, almost enough to overheat the weapon, in his direction. When she was convinced she could safely fire no more she fell gracelessly to the floor, feeling her arms shaking a little with panic.

As she landed, Shepard found herself face to face with the struggling Nash, who was trying to lift her body into a better position with one arm while her left held her pistol and tried to find a mark. Nash glanced at the sniper's position, half-grinned at Shepard for a split-second, and said, "Atta girl."

_Shepard's arms relax and she feels strength pouring into them. All of her muscles surrender control to her mind, and she feels a little warmer. Suddenly she becomes aware of everything. The sniper is dead; one of the many blind shots she fired actually hit home. She was lucky she wasn't hit while standing up in the open for so long, but it doesn't matter now. She has just killed a man, for the first time, but that doesn't matter now either. She is in control now._

Controlling her breathing and laying down some well-aimed covering fire, Shepard grabbed Nash by the arm and pulled. "We need cover," she explained. By way of agreement, Nash dragged herself along with Shepard using her other arm and her good leg for propulsion. The movement was clearly causing her great pain, but they both knew they had to get to a better vantage point.

Soon they hit the shady, solid side-wall of the hotel and Nash sighed loudly. Right away both women lifted their weapons and began surveying the battlefield.

_Time seems to stop for Shepard. With one look she can see all three of their fellow Reds and all five of the Hawaiian shirt boys. One of the Reds, the one with the hood, is already dead. From the sheer number of wounds in his body it's clear that at least one of the Hawaiians is using an assault rifle. The two guys in scarves are not injured. One's scarf has dropped off to reveal an ugly tattoo across his cheeks and chin. She adjusts her glance to focus on the enemies. Three of them are using single pistols, one is attempting, foolishly, to fire two at once, and the last is the man with the assault rifle. He will have to go first. Nash is about to fire and from the looks of things her mark is the dual-pistol-wielding man. It seems like an odd choice, but from her low vantage point on the ground, he is her best shot. Shepard aims for the rifleman's head and flicks on her gun's rapid-fire mechanism._

And then Shepard jumped out of her strange, timeless moment. Her temporary advantage had faded and everyone now seemed to move at the same speed. The sudden change in her perceptions jarred her a little, but her aim was still good. Wasting no time, she fired five straight shots, each one right behind the other, at her target. Four of the tiny bullets landed in the shaved head of the man with the rifle, dropping him and his weapon instantly. The one with the two pistols was dead as well. Nash's aim was good.

The quick, deadly-accurate shooting from the side of the hotel had changed the tide of the fight in an instant. The three surviving Hawaiians quickly dropped behind cover of their own in the form of two cars parked outside of the main entrance. Shepard took a deep breath and spoke to Nash.

"Who are we fighting? What's really going on here?"

"I don't know! This isn't what we… came for," Nash said, hissing with the pain from her smashed kneecap. "But obviously we're in their territory!"

Three or four slugs crashed into the edge of the wall next to them, sending dust flying up and chips of plaster and paint across the floor. The two male Reds now rushed to join them behind a wall. One of them, the heavier man with the face tattoos, awkwardly felt around the back of his custom suit of armour and found a switch, which activated a kinetic barrier. It had come a little late, Shepard thought, but would all-but guarantee his survival in the rest of the fight. The other man, still wearing his scarf, showed his attractive mocha skin and cool green eyes to Shepard. "Good work," he told her. "Now it's four against three."

_Shepard's head darts out from the edge of her cover. In the ensuing second she finds the positions of the three Hawaiians and spies the discarded assault rifle, still lying there, but now closer to them than to the enemy. The Hawaiians are about twenty feet away, now. One of them has retreated to behind the fountain on the far side and Shepard can barely see him. She bets he thinks he is invisible, though, so she still has some advantage. The other two are still behind the cars and waiting. They aren't bold enough to attack, but Shepard is._

"We need a plan," said the man in the scarf, looking at Nash. The older thief nodded back derisively, suggesting she was already working on one.

Unable to help herself, Shepard spoke up. "You with the shields…" she began.

"Hullick," he corrected.

"Hullick, you're pretty well-protected against three men, so you can charge them. And you with the, uh, scarf…?"

The scarfed man nodded but did not say his name, perhaps thinking it unnecessary. Nash told her the man was named Tony. It seemed an oddly-pleasant name for a gang-member, but she shook it off.

"Okay, Tony, you run behind him and cover him, and make for that fence across from us. They won't see where you end up. Me and Nash will try for the guy hiding in the fountain. Hullick, grab that assault rifle and start trying to scare them away from the car. When they run, Tony and me will join you."

For a second they all considered the plan, until Nash started laughing. "I didn't know you had it in ya, sweet-heart!" she giggled, then told the two men, "That's our plan. Get moving. _Go!_"

Shepard stood back to let Nash reach the edge of the white wall, and they began firing at the fountain. It was some distance away, so they took their time with each shot and retreated afterwards. Fire was quickly returned by all of the Hawaiians, but Hullick and Tony were already away. A few bullets hit Hullick and one even seemed to knock the well-armoured man's armour, piercing his shields, but it did him no harm. Trying to take the heat off him, the other three Reds fired on the cars, which silenced the men hiding behind them for a few seconds and gave Shepard another shot at the fountain. She missed, but Nash leaned over and fired immediately afterwards. The surprise second shot revealed the man behind the water and felled him.

Hulick now had begun retreating back to safety whilst hurling the incessant volleys of assault rifle pellets through the car windows, repeatedly breaking the shards of glass. One of the two Hawaiians screamed and the other bolted, helplessly running for the street. But a few frantic bursts of fire from Hullick finished him off. Looking a little shaken and with fully depleted shields, the tank resumed his own retreat.

It was done, then. There were smiles and relieved laughter among the Reds as they relaxed a little. Tony slowly started to make his way back, but stopped to turn his head back toward the cars. Before Shepard realised that the Hawaiian who had screamed was still alive, it was too late. Tony took three slugs to the chest and dropped, bleeding badly.

_Shepard gets back into her shooting position and finds her mark. The last Hawaiian has had to prop himself up against the car, so he is a ridiculously easy target. Maybe his leg is hurt like Nash's or maybe he has just given up on surviving this encounter. If so, he is stupid, but it's not important. Shepard fires twice, to be sure._

The last of the rival gang members put up very little resistance to Shepard's carefully-aimed shots and collapsed heavily against the car.

As Hullick rushed to tend to Tony's body, Shepard turned to Nash. By now she was trying to force herself to her feet, but having little success and wincing with pain. Shepard immediately put an arm around her waist and took some of her weight by force. With an anguished, but muted sigh, Nash accepted the help and met Shepard's eyes. "Thank you," she said with a cold sincerity Shepard had never heard in her syrup voice. She turned her head quickly toward the car park, where Hullick was slapping Tony's lifeless face, having given up on a pulse. "Hullick?" she asked.

"He's dead, Gina."

Nash nodded back at the man. "Okay, I'm betting everyone in the hotel foyer was watching that little display. We have to get out of here before some kind of authorities come down or we run into more trouble with the freaking loud-shirt-gang. Hullick, you're driving."

As she spoke, Nash had been applying clear gel from a grey tube to her injury. The application alone seemed to give Nash renewed vigour and strength. Shepard wondered if it might be the medi-gel used in hospitals and by the military. There were rumours it was even available commercially in some of the big cities, so it was not hard to believe Nash had gotten her hands on some.

"What about Tony and Draa?" the big man asked, trying to sound emotionless. Shepard guessed that Draa was the hooded man who had died when the gunfight began.

Nash coughed a little and winced as the vibrations hit her knee. "We can't carry them and me back to the car. Sorry, Hullick."

Hullick reacted stoically and took Nash's other side, so that he and Shepard almost lifted her of the ground.

Perhaps for Shepard's benefit or perhaps to make herself feel better, Nash explained, "City Hall will get the bodies and cremate them with a little service. It's better than some of us get back in Glendale. Now let's go. Faster."

"Where are we going?" Hullick asked.

"Fifth street. I know a guy who'll fix me up. I think the bullet isn't still in my leg so it'll be easy."

"It's not," Shepard confirmed. "I saw it hit the ground."

"Good."

_They reach the car and hurriedly lay Nash down on the back seat, though she keeps complaining about the fuss being made over her. The other two are relaxing back into their normal behaviour and Nash even seems relieved now that it's over, but Shepard is still tense. She feels a need to look behind her and check the wing-mirror, just in case more of the Hawaiians come looking for them. She feels her finger twitching and her heart beating. Every little sound she hears makes her eyes widen and blood pulse harder. She doesn't want to lose possession of the gun she's been given._

_Even when the car starts Shepard can't relax. The adrenaline is still rushing through her, readying her for the next attack, keeping her deadly abilities available to her. All the way home she waits, but the second attack never comes._


	10. Blood

**Chapter Ten**

**Blood**

-

The Kost Mart was an empty, hollow building, and it tended to get cold at night. This always came as a relief to Shepard, who was used to spending her time in the relentless Arizona sun. Occasionally the rapid climate change would catch her by surprise though. Today, for the first time since her childhood, she was wearing a dress. The sting of the cold was unusually harsh against her bare arms and legs, so she considered covering up.

It would be a shame, she felt, to put on heavier clothes when she was so enjoying wearing the dress. She had only bought it today, after all, and she had shaved her legs for this. Wrapping her arms around her chest and holding her head in them she blew hot air onto her forearm to warm herself up. She tasted soap as she did, and moved her head back up. She would just have to activate the Mart's electric heating. It would cost her to do so, but she knew she could afford the luxury, just like she had budgeted for her new clothes.

The thin, smooth, burgundy fabric of the expensive new garment hung off her a little too loosely, but she found that she liked the look. The similarly flowing hair above it was clean and untangled, but needed to be cut. Occasionally it would get into her eyes and the ends were distinctly uneven. Beneath the edge of the dress, Shepard's shins were a little bruised. So many speedy escapes with the Reds, and of course the gunfight at the Hotel, had left them sore and blackened in places. Finally her newfound beauty was spoiled by the awkward bulge of her pistol, still strapped to her right thigh. The gun was large and angled, and the soft material against it served only to further accentuate its shape.

Shepard knew it looked silly, but she refused to remove the weapon. After the surprise attack at the Clarion, Nash had noticed the younger woman's unwillingness to part with the borrowed pistol and gifted it to her, dressing the gesture up as a rite of passage. They both knew Shepard had been shaken by the encounter and that having the gun by her side relaxed her. Since that day, it had remained attached to her person at all times, except when she was bathing, when it was kept on the shelf next to the sink, at arm's reach.

To compliment the dress, Shepard had switched her usual gin for white wine, drank from an actual glass, if not a pretty one. After spending a good amount of her generous Reds cut in the stores in the morning, she had spent the afternoon trying to get a signal out of her television in the living room and making the most of the small packet of spare extranet bandwidth she had scrounged-up. None of this had proved fruitful and now the girl was bored. And so it was that she came to be milling around the main hall. Here there were unique games to be played, including but not limited to reorganising stock, climbing the shelves and her latest creation, Price-Check Roulette. She had been balancing on the edge of a shopping cart when she decided the cold had become too much for her. With a graceful hop she dismounted and started to push the trolley back to its home.

She stopped dead when she heard an odd sound from upstairs. It was familiar and yet not so, as she had never heard it from this location. The corrugated metal sheet on her 'front door' dropped to the floor, pushed roughly by someone who evidently didn't mind being heard.

There were two options as Shepard saw it. Either her sanctuary had been discovered for a second time in as many months or Blue Jay was back. She almost hoped it was the former; she found Jay repulsive and wondered what business he might have in visiting her directly. Short, discreet calls had become their preferred method of communication and she liked it that way.

Heavy, angry footsteps sounded off around the upstairs, wondering about the rooms. The unexpected violation of her privacy made Shepard tense and afraid to investigate. She felt her legs stiffen and decided she would feel much better if she didn't move. Instead she would simply wait until the intruder came downstairs or hope they left.

Finally, after the upstairs had been fully investigated and Shepard had made the assumption that she was being robbed, the footsteps hit the small stairwell and headed downstairs. Stood at the conveniences aisle, the girl knew she would at least be able to see the robber before he saw her. Silently, holding onto the empty shelf next to her in order to still her trembling, she waited.

"Hey!" came a female voice, echoing from the stairwell. "Hey, Shepard? This is your place? Where are you, sweetie?"

Shepard's relief expressed itself physically as she pushed away from the shelves, rattling them.

"Gina?" she called, happy but confused. She began to feel very silly for wearing the dress.

Nash dutifully appeared at the stairs, stooping slightly to avoid hitting the ceiling, then extended herself fully as she entered the large, empty hall. She looked around at the freeze-packed food in disbelief, and had wandered as far as the checkouts before Shepard found her and waved.

"Well! There y'are!"

There was a brief silence whilst Nash wondered whether the market or the girl's strange appearance was more worthy of comment. She visibly decided. "You live in a damn supermarket, Shepard?"

"Uh… yes."

"Well… it's smart. Very smart. It feels great to be in this big, open space here! Smart, Shepard." She seemed bewildered.

"How did you…"

Nash snapped back to attention. "Oh. I persuaded Jay to tell me. I'm sorry, I hate to turn-up uninvited. I was looking for you upstairs."

Shepard nodded, frowning a little. It was good that Nash had been the one to get the location of her home out of Jay, and as always it was nice to see her, but knowing that she had been betrayed so easily worried her. Nash could see the fears working through her head, and frowned with her.

"Sorry, honey, but it's important. I know you value your privacy but… it's important." Nash sat herself down on the checkout and picked up one of the yellow rubber divider sticks. As she began to talk she used it as a prop, waving it around and jabbing it to make points.

"That night at the hotel," she began, "you weren't supposed to be there. When those idiots from uptown, whoever they were, when they showed up and interrupted the job I was actually glad. Right up until they started killing us."

"I don't know what you…"

Nash's voice was stern, her face devoid of its familiar playful smirks. "Cross was being a… he was trying to _break_ you or… I don't know what he thought he was doing by sending you with us. Maybe he was just having a little fun with you. He knew you couldn't handle it."

Shepard fought with her initial urge to take offence at the comment, and lost. "I handled myself pretty well once the shooting started!" she blurted out, regretting it immediately.

"Yeah you did. But we weren't there to start a gang war. And sweetheart, we sure as hell weren't there to rob the hotel either."

Nash's hard face turned quizzical, studying Shepard's blank expression to work-out whether or not the girl had already guessed. She hadn't.

"It's amazing how naive you can be, considering all your smarts…" the older thief muttered, the barest hint of her old smile playing on her lips. "There's an alien staying in the Clarion," she said, after a moment. "A turian, in fact."

Shepard knew that turians were loathed more than any species by the Reds, and by Nash more than most. After the incident with the asari corpse on the street, the friends had made a silent agreement to live-and-let-live. They never mentioned aliens to each other again and their relationship prospered. Just hearing Nash use the word 'turian' made Shepard uneasy.

"Name of Tarion Rymus. It's a general in the turian fleet. And it was a captain in the war. At the head of one of the ships that started the fighting at the Mass Relay."

Nash placed the rubber divider down, making a heavy _slap_. She still held it with her fingertips as she spoke her next sentence, finding the guts to look her friend in the eye half-way though. "Me and the boys were there to kill it, Shepard."

Shepard leaned back against the opposing checkout, feeling slightly faint. She had to run Nash's words over in her mind three times before she was able to comprehend them.

"Wasn't any armed robbery," Nash said again. "It was a hit. I brought all those guys so that we'd definitely get it, even if we had to fight our way to its room."

"_His_." Shepard spoke, very quietly.

Nash slammed the divider down again, not to startle Shepard but just to release her own tension. "Y'see, that's why I'm here! That's it, right there!" she said, before quieting her tone to match the younger girl's. "That's not right."

"We don't do that. The Reds don't _do_ that. We're just thieves. And dealers, I guess."

"Not when an alien is staying in one of our hotels, we're not! Not when one of the aliens who _personally_ started the _First Contact War_ is just sitting in a hotel, not even in the safety of a big city, not even in Phoenix. Rymus is _asking for it!_"

Shepard wanted her to stop talking so badly, and it came as a very pleasant relief when she did. They did not look at each other until Nash lowered herself, quite gently, from her perch.

"It's freezing in here," she commented. "You sleep in this cold?"

Shepard had forgotten all about the cold, but now, on cue, it hit her bare legs. "No," she said. "I was about to switch-on the heaters. Come on." Straightening herself up she walked quickly to the stairs. The taller woman followed, and both of them felt the strange, new intense atmosphere they had created. It felt as if they had never known each other.

Reaching the power box, Shepard flicked two switches in order to heat the building. As she did, she grabbed her old, black jacket and slipped it over the dress. Nash uttered a quiet syllable, about to protest, but decided not to say anything. In an instant something occurred to Shepard.

"How's your leg recovering?"

Nash smiled a little, but it was not genuine. "It's better. More or less perfect. Like you said, the bullet didn't stay in."

"Good."

"Yeah."

The smaller girl slipped quietly passed the other, and led her into the living room. She pulled a chair and sat down, and Nash did the same. They looked at each other with meek, embarrassed smiles until the moment Nash spotted something behind Shepard's head, on the chipped, old worktop.

"A sand bag? You've got a bag of red sand over there, Shepard." Her tone of voice was as if Shepard had never noticed the tightly-packed, unopened drug. "Where'd you get that?" Nash sounded in equal parts surprised and annoyed.

"Cross gave it to me. The day before… the hotel."

Nash stared at the bag. "You haven't opened it," she said, and though she was trying to suppress the emotion, she now sounded more angry than Shepard had ever heard her.

"No... I know I'm a Red now, but do I have to…?"

Something Shepard had said was too much and caused Nash to violently push her chair away and stand up. The metal legs of the cheap furniture groaned as they were forced against the hard, polished floor.

"_Are you kidding me here, Shepard?_" Nash shouted, making a fist and planting it against the worktop behind her. "You don't even understand the… _no_, sweetie, _no _you don't have to like sand. _This_ is what we need to talk about."

After breathing to collect her thoughts, Nash sat down again. "I really like you," she said. "You're the nicest, most hard-working, smartest person I've run with in this gang. Including Mike. It's refreshing, you know? What I really like about you is that you can turn your hand to anything. You brought yourself up, found this place for yourself, learned to fight, learned to pick locks. And that night at the hotel, well the way you handled yourself, the way you _took control_ was just… it's ridiculous."

This line of conversation was much easier for Shepard to hear. As she immersed herself in the warm glow she felt from the compliments, she tried to forget what her mentor had told her about Rymus.

"You're too good…" Nash caught herself and swallowed some saliva. "No that's not it. Well maybe… You're not one of the Tenth Street Reds, sweetheart. You don't belong."

"I…"

"Now I don't know where you do belong, but it's not with us."

"But…"

"All right, I'll ask you a question, straight-up," Nash announced, matter-of-factly. "Do you want to help me kill Rymus? I'm going back to the hotel tonight."

Shepard stared at her, silent and terrified. The older woman was not trying to impress her. She was serious.

"No, you don't," Nash answered for her. "And it's not because you're some kind of alien-lover. I know you're not. You've got issues with the batarians and the turians just like everyone else, but you're not a killer."

A little spark of the confidence Shepard had felt outside the hotel suddenly welled-up inside her. "I killed more of those Hawaiian shirt guys than _you!_" she spat, even raising her voice.

Nash shot her down instantly. "In self-defence," she said calmly. "Let me rephrase… you're not a _murderer_."

"Are you?"

"Yeah."

Once again, Nash was not exaggerating. Again, Shepard was utterly deflated by her remarks. She tried to think of a counter argument but came up short. The delay cost her, as Nash returned with another of her questions, forcing her to face things she preferred to ignore.

"Why don't you live in Phoenix?"

"What?" this one caught the girl by surprise.

"Do you like Glendale?"

Shepard actually laughed. "Of course not! Nobody does."

Finally, Nash's half-smile returned to her tired face, though it was sickly now. "I do," she said. "I like what I do with the Reds and I like the people here. I like that there are no aliens and I like the pace of life. Do you ever get bored?"

"Well…"

"I don't." Nash sighed and decided to ease-up with the interrogation. "Let me put it like this…" she made a clicking sound with her tongue and her cheek for a moment, then faced her young friend again. "Go to Phoenix," she said, simply. "Use the money you got from the Reds and rent some place. The Reds… they'll all forget about you."

Shepard was glad she had not said 'we'. She smiled, then softly said, "I like this place." It was the first argument that had come easy to her so far.

"Get a job, Shepard. Any job you want. If I've learned anything about you, it's that you're tough enough to succeed at whatever you put your mind to. So what the hell are you doing still living here, huh?"

Shepard stood, leaving Nash where she was, and poured herself a glass of wine. There was just enough for two, but it seemed somehow inappropriate to offer one to Nash. It would look very silly if she refused. She took a sip, then a gulp, then refilled the glass. Now there was not enough to fill a second glass and that problem had been solved. She stayed stood, trying to give herself a confidence boost by being physically higher than her opponent in the argument.

"Mike had a nice way of looking at things," Nash said, leaning forward onto her elbows. Shepard thought back to what she knew of her friend's late fiancée, and remembered that she liked the sound of him, more or less. Nash, certainly, still loved him dearly. "He used to say that good people are the people with sense…" she paused, then interrupted herself. "You know what I mean by that. There's folks in the gang with no damn sense. Cross, for one. He said good people are those with sense, and those who do the best they can with what they have. Do you know what I mean?"

The meaning was clear. Nash was disappointed in Shepard's stagnation in Glendale. Before the Reds had come into her life, she had been ready to leave Arizona behind once and for all and try again. She had been all set to go travelling again, and as much as she would miss the pleasant luxury of the Kost Mart, and in particular its wines and spirits section, Shepard had never been one to stay in one place for too long. Not since the Landing, anyway, but that was too long ago for her to really remember.

However, now there was more to lose than just her home. There was the only true friend she had known since Illinois. On top of that, running with the Reds gave Shepard a steady income. Living like she had become accustomed to in the recent months was not exactly paradise, but it was better than sleeping rough in some new town, worse than the last.

Ever since the Landing, every new town had been worse than the last. With the Reds, with the Kost Mart and Gina Nash, Shepard finally had something resembling a fulfilling life.

"You know what?" Shepard shot back, angry now and embracing the emotion. "I'm doing pretty well here! And it's not like I can't _deal_ with this Rymus thing. You want me to say it? Fine. I think it's wrong to kill him. I think it's morally wrong. Big whoop. But I can _deal_ with it! It won't make me any less loyal to the Reds. I can just forget it! I can… I can't make it on my own, Gina!"

"Well in that case maybe I was wrong about you, sweetness." There was a spite in Nash's voice, hiding some pain.

Shepard kicked her own chair, now, sending it skidding across the carefully-tidied canteen. It stayed on all four of its legs, making less of a commotion than she had intended. She picked up the little bag of red sand from behind her head, then deftly cut it open with a small pocket knife. The movements flowed together with the girl's natural grace and skill, and the sandbag was open and on the table within three seconds.

"_Maybe I don't exactly fit in with the rest of the Reds_," Shepard stormed, raising her voice against her would-be protector and loving the feeling of independence. "But I'm learning fast. And _I'm perfectly happy_." Moving her hands with too much exuberance, she began to use the knife to cut a line of the pink powder on the table, smiling a ghoulish smile.

Nash's warm hand landed on top of Shepard's cold one and stopped her.

"Look, Shepard. One more question, all right?" Her voice made the request seem very reasonable.

"Okay."

"Do you know why we call ourselves the Reds?"

A warm, sickening humiliation began to rise up in Shepard. Although she thought she knew, suddenly she was not so sure, and there was no way she could avoid answering the question.

"Yeah, it's because… because of the red sand…"

Right away, her opponent's eyes told Shepard that she was wrong, and she prepared herself for Nash to grin with half of her mouth and take the point from her, winning the argument and forcing her to listen. The girl's cheeks were hot.

But Nash did not smile. Her expression was deathly as she tenderly squeezed the girl's hand for the briefest moment. "No," she murmured. "No, you idiot. It has nothing to do with the sand. It's because we _know what colour our blood is_. Get it? Distances us from the aliens. Red. Blood. See?"

The older woman was clearly not trying to anger or embarrass Shepard, but she needed her to understand. Her hand moved away and she stood up, ready to leave.

"Shepard, I'm going to get ready. When I am, I'm going to kill that alien in his room, and I'm going to make it hurt. I really like talking to you. A lot, Shepard. But I don't ever want to see you again. The Reds are starting to get serious, starting tonight. And this outfit isn't fit to be one o' your little adventures anymore. You're so tough, but sometimes I have no idea what goes on in that greasy head of yours. Sometimes you make me so damn mad, I swear… I have to go to work now, honey."

Nash turned to leave the room, too tired to continue.

"I can _deal_ with it!" Shepard yelled, hurting the back of her throat with the sudden cry. "I can live with it. I don't exactly like turians, you know! Maybe I'll kill him myself, did you ever think of that? Maybe I'll get there first! _I know where he is!_"

Without any response, Nash left the room. Shepard heard her climbing out of the entrance and shifting the corrugated iron sheet back into place behind her. Then there was the muffled sound of Nash attempting to descend the exterior wall of the Kost Mart, and then with a final, controlled thud, she left Shepard by herself.

It took Shepard some time before she was cool enough to allow herself to think about what had happened. She first spent the time straightening the chairs, then tidying the red sand back into its back and resealing it with tape. She then placed it inside a larger bag, just in case. When the spilled dust was properly cleaned up, she removed her jacket, revealing some new wrinkles on the rich, maroon dress. Feeling uncomfortable in the living room, she headed back to the power box and deactivated the heating. She didn't need it anymore.


	11. The Renegade

**Chapter Eleven**

**The Renegade**

-

Nobody saw a thin, long-haired girl in a nice red dress crawl out of the window of the abandoned supermarket and shimmy down the rough brick wall holding it up. Beneath the flimsy garment she wore black trousers and the nicest pair of shoes she owned, which is to say, not boots. Secreted more delicately than it had been previously, a modified Karpov III pistol lay under the dress, behind her right thigh. The girl walked fast, jogging when she was sure nobody could see her. Now as the evening passed and gave way to the stuffy night, the streets were relatively empty, allowing her to pick up speed. She didn't know how much time she had, so every second was precious.

Within fifteen minutes she had made it to Glendale Linkway Station. The building was completely unmanned at this time, and only three people were waiting on the platform. After leaping over the archaic ticket-scanner stile, Shepard managed to hide in a dark corner of the platform without any of the other travellers seeing her. When, after another ten minutes, the train arrived, she watched the three widely disperse themselves in an antisocial manner between the front two carriages. At the last moment before the doors closed, Shepard crept into the third, which she was happy to find deserted. She sat with her back to the door connecting the carriage to the other two and waited. After a moment, the train quietly took off.

For once, Shepard was glad of the lack of windows onboard, and simply sat in dim silence, arranging strands of her hair to fall over her face. She did not have to wait long; at this time there were only two stops between the Linkway and the smaller R17 Roadstop station. Soon the doors opened, and after no-one boarded, Shepard alighted, scanned the room she found herself in, and made for the exit.

Shepard couldn't help but keep an eye out for dangerous individuals in Hawaiian shirts, but she saw no-one suspicious on her way to Lee Street. Cutting through the small park, she took a little more time but stayed away from streetlights, and arrived at the rear of the grand, well-lit Clarion Hotel quickly.

Nobody was outside at the back or the front, so she quickly moved to the main doors. It was late, so the large hotel was closed for the night. Shepard had to hit a button, state a fictitious name to a wall-mounted microphone and wait a minute. Assistance came in the ambling form of the night-porter Shepard had briefly met on her previous visit. Silently she cursed herself for showing the man her face previously, but as he opened the door for her he did not seem to recognise her.

"Good evening, miss Crawford," he said from above his immaculate suit. "I don't see you on our list of guests tonight. May I help you?" The porter was being a lot more helpful than the last time Shepard had seen him. Shepard was dressed-up tonight for a reason. The Clarion was a fancy place, and she had to look her best if she expected to be taken seriously.

"Yes, good evening," Shepard replied with a deep, clear confidence in her voice. Her hair hung across her eyes in waves, but she held his gaze from beneath it. "I believe this is where General Rymus is staying at the moment?"

The porter had not expected the question, and confirmed the information with a slight sneer before he remembered he was not supposed to speak of the turian officer's stay. "Excuse me," he said, stopping himself from revealing any more. "I'm not at liberty to divulge information about our guests."

"Good! The General asked that his location be kept secret!" She gave an incredulous smile and clasped her hands behind her back.

"Oh, yes, my apologies. May I ask your relationship to the, uh, General?" Again, the man gave a little involuntary sneer as he mentioned Rymus' rank. Shepard guessed he had an issue with the turian and wondered if she might use it to her advantage.

It would be a challenge convincing him that a sixteen-year old girl had business with an alien military leader in the middle of the night. After running through several possible 'characters' for herself before leaving the market, she had decided to keep it simple and use a prop. "No offence intended, sir, but the purpose of the General's visit is not to be discussed publicly. I'm with the Alliance, you have my name. That's all you need to know."

Very quickly, she flashed a plastic card bearing an Alliance government seal and some minor details, including the name Crawford after a male first name. She had pick-pocketed the card on a street corner in Colorado, years ago. She didn't give him long enough to read it all. With a look of impatience she slid it back into her exotic, triangular salarian wallet and waited with a stern look.

"I… I see. How can I help you then, Miss Crawford?" he seemed suitably convinced, but not impressed. Time to win him over.

"Private Crawford," Shepard corrected, improvising now. The rank seemed believable enough. "I assume general Rymus has a security team at his room?" She arched her neck to the side as she spoke and adjusted a strand of hair, trying to obscure her face as much as possible.

The porter nodded. "A member of our own security team is ensuring his safety, Private."

"Day and night?"

"Yes ma'am, twenty-four hours."

"Seems like a waste of resources to protect a turian, doesn't it?" she asked, smiling.

The question caught the porter off-guard. In his surprise he gave a quick smile before snapping back into his prior, expressionless stance. Shepard celebrated inwardly. Her attempts to force her way past him had given slow progress, but her charm offensive was faring much better.

"Anyway, I just need to give some information to his security guard. It's important. I don't know the General's room number, though. Could you perhaps take me there?"

He seemed apprehensive, but a cute face from Shepard persuaded him. "I suppose there's no harm, and you are from the Alliance, right?"

"Yes, of course. Would you like to see my ID again?" Shepard began making a fuss of fumbling in her trouser pocket for the little wallet.

"No need, Private," the porter said, and he was rewarded with a sweet smile. He turned away toward the elevator, then stopped. "Hold on, Miss… have we met before?"

"I don't think so, no."

"I'm sure I… didn't I see you last week? Yes, I did, the night of the…"

The porter's eyes widened very slightly. Before he could react further, Shepard had a palm holding his mouth shut and her other hand against his shoulder, pressing him to the wall.

She spoke with a harsh whisper. "_The turian's room number or I break your neck._"

Under her palm he tried to shake his head, but the force she was exerting made it impossible. Still, she got his point. A second later her gun was jammed into his temple.

"I'm not kidding. If you don't want to help me I'll just find him myself. His will be the big room with the security guard outside, right?"

The doorman blinked slowly, then nodded. She released her grip and he told her, "Third floor, Imperial Suite."

"Thank you."

As he began to sigh with relief, the butt of the pistol hit his head and knocked him out cold.

--

The lift doors opened with a non-synthesised-sounding bell effect played through the speakers. The Clarion was a fancier place than Shepard had ever been in before, and it was hard not to admire the old-style architecture outside and the decor within. Arriving at the third floor, she found a little hall, smaller than the foyer where she had boarded the elevator, but cosy and with an antique grandfather clock set oddly against a traditional brushed-steel wall. Somehow, it looked charming.

Each floor of the building was wide and expansive, but luckily she was directed to the named suites by a black, wall-mounted sign. She followed the little white arrow to her left, then hurried through a series of corridors until she spied, through a small, square window in a door, a tall, wide gentleman in a black suit and red tie. This, she assumed, must be Rymus' guard. He looked tough and he was likely armed, but Shepard no longer had the time or the patience to sweet-talk him.

At her touch the door slid open and the guard's head turned to face her. Like rotating cameras his eyes tracked her as she came closer to him. She walked slowly and carelessly to put him at ease, then when she got close enough, leaned forward slightly with her mouth open, as if about to whisper some secret. Instinctively, he leaned forward to meet her, and she punched him hard. The guard lost his footing and fell to one knee, but he was far from knocked-out. It took two swift knees to his head to bring him to unconsciousness, and then a whack with her pistol just to be sure.

It would not be long before this man was back on his feet and pointing a gun at her. Shepard decided not to waste time looking for a utility room or a bathroom in which to leave him. She would just hope that nobody happened to pass the room while she was inside. Dragging the heavy lump of a guard away from the door itself, she took a breath and massaged her fist before using it to knock on the door.

It took a few moments for the occupant to hear her. This was good. It meant he had not heard the fight either.

"Yes?" came a deep, curious voice. It sounded almost like a pure British accent, but not quite. Its odd layering was unmistakably alien. "What do you want now?"

"Message for you sir," Shepard called. "Highest level priority, from the Alliance."

There was another little pause.

"What?" came the voice. "What is that supposed to mean? Who are you?"

Shepard rolled her eyes then tried again, with a higher-pitched, happy little voice. "Sorry, General," she beamed, smiling to the door. "I'm from the hotel staff. I have a message for you!"

"A message? I'm sure I have no idea wh…"

The door swished open to reveal a thin turian with a perplexed look on his snow-white face. Fine black tattoos, like contour lines on a map, served to define his features and circle his little nose and strong jawline. His unremarkable dark green eyes darted about across the unexpected view that greeted him.

Not giving him a chance to close the door, the small, smiling girl punched his face hard. The impact probably hurt Shepard's fist as much as the turian's thick hide, but it had the desired effect of startling him and knocking him off balance. Swiftly she punched again, finding no other part of his body unprotected by his grey military armour. Immediately she leaped upon him, using her bodyweight to send his broad, humped back crashing to the carpeted floor. Once she had him in this position it was a simple thing to retrieve her gun from under her dress and aim it squarely at his forehead. He froze.

The sound of the pistol electronically cocking was familiar to them both. Their eyes met.


	12. The Paragon

**Chapter Twelve**

**The Paragon**

-

"Don't move," she breathed.

The turian's pinprick eyes focused on her. "Well, I might and I might not," he told her. "Are you going to kill me?"

Shepard answered honestly. "I'm not here to kill you."

"Well then, I might very well move… urgh!"

Before he could finish being clever, the General found the pistol's barrel shoved painfully into his forehead.

"All right. For the time being I am yours, human."

The gun lifted a little. "Here's what's going to happen. You're going to gather your valuables very quickly, then you're checking out. We're going to go to the transport station and then we're going to Phoenix."

The turian was apprehensive. "And then where?"

"The embassy."

"What? Which emb…"

"The turian embassy."

Now his expression and tone gave way to pure confusion. "What? What is this? Who are you?"

"My name's Crawford," she said quickly. "There's a street gang out to kill you. They'll be here any minute. You're lucky I got to you first. I'm getting you to safety."

The little flaps on either side of Rymus' mouth extended outwards for a moment while he reacted to her story. "I have… I _had_ security, girl."

"Not good enough."

"And you are, I suppose? And by the way, what precisely drove you to undertake this selfless mission? Am I to believe you're here out of the goodness of your heart?" He looked to the side for a second. "Is that the right expression? Goodness of your heart?"

"I'm a very nice person, General. But if you like, you and your security guard can wait here for the Reds to show up, and fend them off yourselves. You know, your security guard who was just beaten up by a girl."

Shepard climbed away from the soldier and once standing, slid her pistol into her trouser pocket. Rymus smiled at her joke as he stood. "I suppose if you were with this… gang, you would have killed me already. Very well, my little primate, I believe you."

"Outstanding. If you have anything you want to take with you, get it now."

Taking his protector seriously now, the General hurriedly packed a case with papers and OSD's from his desk. "This is all I need," he said to Shepard, whose head was outside a window, surveying the scene outside.

"They're not here yet," she said. "Go now and I'll follow you. If they see us we're both dead."

Rymus slid open the door and glanced down disdainfully at his unconscious security man. His long strides brought him to the nearest elevator soon. Shepard followed with her gun in her right hand, ready to strike at a moment's notice. The turian called the elevator and they waited.

"May I ask why I am suddenly a target for assassination?"

From behind him, Shepard shook her head angrily. "Rumour has it you were one of the instigators of the First Contact War."

"Interesting way of putting it. It never ceases to amuse me how you people insist on referring to that incident as a 'war'. Yes, I was at Relay Three-Fourteen. That conflict could have been prevented, but I stand by my decision." He turned to Shepard to make his next point, but was interrupted as the lift doors opened with their pleasant bell sound. They entered and Shepard pressed a button, while Rymus continued. "How would you react," he asked with no small degree of smugness, "if you encountered a group of monkeys playing with an unexploded warhead?"

Shepard did not answer.

"That's exactly what we saw," the General continued, undeterred. "Your race doesn't understand, even now, the dangers of blindly activating a Mass Relay. When my people joined the Citadel we had to deal with the krogan, and we still have to put up with those brutes. You needed a little… _wrist-slap_ to teach you a lesson. Considering the Rachni Wars and the Krogan Rebellions, I'd say _you_ got off lightly."

Shepard temporarily glanced across to make eye-contact with the turian. "You're oversimplifying," she said calmly, then turned back. He did not reply, so the rest of the elevator ride was silent.

The doors opened shortly, and as the pair stepped into the foyer they heard loud, angry knocking on the locked front doors. The porter was nowhere to be seen, which probably meant he was still unconscious and hidden behind his desk.

"They're here," Shepard said, starting to run. "Get to the back door, quickly." She bolted away from the front, toward a smaller door on the other side of the room. When a projectile smashed through the glass of the front door, Rymus followed at the same speed.

After running through two corridors they came to a marked fire exit, whose location Shepard had already noted as a possible escape route. She saw nobody outside, but the small, square window only allowed her a modest view. Without thinking, she pushed the metal bar hard, and the jarring pain as the door refused to open made her yelp a little.

"Locked," she explained.

"_Locked?_" The slight panic in the General's voice made Shepard happy. Immediately she remembered her omni-tool. Quickly pressing a few buttons she activated the device and watched the familiar, orange display arrange itself around her forearm, starting a preliminary scan of the lock as it did. Controlling her breathing she tried an old decryption code.

A little red light flashed on her omni-tool's display. No good. Only a few metres behind her, she could hear the front door had now been broken completely. It was unlikely the invaders had seen her and the turian running past, but it would not be hard to find them. She scanned the lock and then typed in another code.

Again she was rewarded only by a flashing red light. This time she didn't bother to re-scan and simply typed in one final code. She had learned it only a week ago on a theft for the Reds. It was her last chance.

With an unceremonious _snap_ the bolt shot back into its casing, and Shepard threw open the door. Quickly she scanned her immediate left and right. Nothing to the right. On her other side was a silhouetted figure.

"Shepard? What in the…"

The voice was familiar, but always unwelcome. Growing closer, Blue Jay tilted his head at her and removed his big, black sunvisor. For once his attire was dark and conservative, but she saw the rings on his fingers shining red against the glow of his pistol.

Rymus chose this moment to follow Shepard through the door. The girl opened her mouth to chastise him, but stopped as she saw the shadow of Jay's hand tightening around the handle of his gun.

Shepard's own weapon was held behind her back, so Jay could not have seen it. His surprise at seeing the young thief appearing through the back door with General Rymus himself slowed his reaction down a little. Shepard was ready though, and had aimed her shot before the blue-haired gangster had even straightened his puzzled face. She fired twice. The first bullet ricocheted off the wall behind him, but the second hit his head. Jay's heavy body spun slightly before it hit the ground face-first.

His mouth open with surprise, the turian fully stepped out into the street. Shepard loosened her arms and let her gun dangle. "They must have heard that," she said. "Follow me. _Move!_"

Flying into the back streets behind the hotel, the pair breathed heavily and tried their best to stay quiet. Shepard could not hear the three sets of footsteps following them as they were drowned out by her heart-beat and the rhythmic snorting of the turian behind her. Often she would feel his hot breath against her neck, but that just encouraged her to run faster.

Shepard picked her route carefully, occasionally leaping over walls and changing direction when she thought she was far ahead of her pursuers. Only once did the Reds following them get close enough to squeeze off a shot, but it sailed over Rymus' head as he instinctively ducked his head. The scare gave Shepard and the General a burst of speed, which they used to round two corners in quick succession. After ten minutes of solid sprinting, both of them needed to catch their breath. It was Shepard who stopped running. Crouching down she listened carefully, then put a finger to her lips in order to still Rymus' hoarse wheezing.

"I think we lost them," she said. After a deep breath she continued. "But they'll still be coming." She took another long, pleasurable intake of air. "Let's go."

They continued walking, with Shepard's route now taking them to the transport station via the shortest route possible. Occasionally either Shepard or Rymus would hold still for a moment or drop to the ground, thinking they had seen or heard one of the gangsters, but they were not discovered.

"All this because of Relay Three-Fourteen?" the turian hissed. He had been filled with rage ever since he lost his cool at the locked door, and as it had encouraged him to run, Shepard had not discouraged him. "A two-month conflict that happened more than ten years ago? No wonder your species is so universally loathed, if this is your reaction to a simple enforcement of Citadel regulations!"

Although the soldier's small-minded view irritated her, Shepard decided not to rise to him and to simply to concentrate on their escape.

"_Savages_, they call you back home!" Rymus said, too loud for Shepard's comfort. "Finally, I am inclined to agree!"

"Quiet," Shepard said.

Rymus did whisper, but directly into her ear. He took care to walk one step behind her as he did. "You people look just like the asari, but you don't have any of their fine qualities. You're just hairy, little… backwards… psychopaths. We would have been doing the Galaxy a favour if we'd just finished you off when we had the chance."

Finally, Shepard replied to his goading. "A lot of us lost family in the War," she said simply.

The General actually laughed as he said, "A lot more of you than us, certainly. You fought like children."

Shepard spun around. "General, I don't want to have to concentrate on this pointless discussion. If you want my help, then shut up."

The girl's voice was steady and emotionless, just as her face had been from the moment she had first met him. Suitably impressed, the turian backed down and dropped a few steps behind his guide. After a few minutes had elapsed, Shepard began the conversation anew.

"General, I can't tell you how unpopular your species is among the people of Earth. The War was terrifying for us. Imagine realising for the first time that there's intelligent life in the Galaxy, but only when they start blasting you out of the sky for reasons you can't understand. We're all still recovering, and so is our fleet."

"Is that right?" Rymus absently muttered.

"It isn't easy for us to rise above fear and petty prejudice," She continued, talking to herself now. "But we're trying. That's why we fought so hard for that Citadel Embassy. We want to measure up."

The turian responded with a grunt, but Shepard could not tell if it was one of approval or disinterest.

--

Finally the two reached the station. Moving carefully and slowly, Shepard made her way into the empty entrance hall and glanced at the ticket scanners. She hated paying, but she would be damned if she was going to give the General another reason to look down on humans. Reaching into the salarian wallet, she withdrew some credits and paid the automated vending machine.

Rymus spoke again. "The turian military does _regret_ the Relay Three-Fourteen Incident, human. I admit freely, though… what we regret most of all is the extraordinary sum of credits we were forced to pay in reparations."

At this, Shepard actually laughed. "That's funny," she said quietly. "That's the complaint I always hear from humans too. Reparations money. Here, your ticket."

She handed him his freshly-printed ticket and scanned hers against the little panel built into the turnstile. The machine gave her a satisfied _bleep_ and she moved through, gripping her pistol tightly.

The platform was dark, but Shepard noticed no-one else waiting for the train. This was good. A turian and a girl alone at night would attract unwelcome attention if they were seen. Turning her head for a moment, she beckoned for Rymus to follow her, and he nodded from the shadows.

Time seemed to slow down as Shepard heard the fast, heavy footsteps behind her. Ahead of her, Rymus' face contorted into an expression of surprised fear, an emotion which looked exactly the same on a turian face as a human one. Spinning her body as fast as she could, Shepard knew that whoever was chasing her down was already too close. She felt a fist drive mercilessly into her cheek, knocking her head back in the direction it had come from. Then another blow came to the back of her head and she lost her balance. She could still see Rymus, who now was retreating and ducking down. The turian was using her body as a shield. She did not blame him; it was a smart move, considering that he was almost certainly her assailant's target.

She wanted badly to get to her feet and punch the mysterious aggressor right back, but she thought about it for a second and realised she could not do so quickly enough to avoid another blow. Dropping down, she instead grabbed her pistol, spun herself and aimed at her enemy's head.

Nash had seen the manoeuvre coming and readied her own pistol. Standing above Shepard and close to her, she extended out her arms and held the barrel of her gun little more than a foot from the girl's face. And so they remained, Shepard sat on the cold ground and Nash towering over her, each ready to end the other's life with one bullet.

Sweat was rolling down Nash's forehead, sticking strands of her flame-red hair to her face. She breathed through her open mouth as she stared at Shepard with something approaching hatred.

"For Christ's _sake_, Shepard!" she yelled. "You were just supposed to get out of the gang while you still could. I wasn't telling you to _rescue the alien!_"

"It's wrong," Shepard replied, her voice breaking just a little. "You can't kill this man just beca…"

"_It's not a man!_" Nash shrieked, losing all of her usual composure."_Jesus, Shepard! It's a turian! It's personally responsible for First Contact. Don't you dare tell me this isn't right!_"

They stayed silent for what seemed like forever. Shepard wondered where Rymus was and assumed that he had found a hiding place behind her, perhaps even run away. Either way was good. The standoff continued. Shepard was afraid to blink.

"I just wanted to look out for you, honey," Nash said through gritted teeth. "You're just a kid and you can do so much better than this. You know what I think you should do?"

Shepard stared back.

"I think you should be a cop. You'd be a seriously good cop. Just make sure it's not in my town, that's all."

They stared, feeling the cool, metal triggers beneath their fingers.

"I don't wanna be a cop."

"Honey, with all due respect, you don't have a damn clue what you want to do."

A wave of guilt hit Shepard, temporarily making her lose her aim. Realising her mistake, she steadied the gun again.

"I always used to want to be a waitress," she told Nash, pathetically.

Nash opened her mouth and shook, as if she were laughing without the smile. "You can do a lot better than that, Shepard."

Shepard narrowed her eyes a little, readying herself. She knew there was a good chance that she would be forced to kill her only friend, and that it could happen at any moment. This understanding flooded her conscious mind with a deluge of conflicting emotions, but she ignored them all. She knew she could pull the trigger if Nash tried to take down the General. That was all she needed to know, so she concentrated on her aim instead.

A welcome sight appeared from behind the barrel of the pistol. Nash was smiling her endearing little half-smile.

"Sweetie, I don't want to kill you," she said.

"That won't work, Gina."

The smile vanished.

"Don't try to intimidate me," Shepard continued, flatly. "I've made my mind up on this one. The alien lives." Shepard could not know what reaction this might trigger in Nash, so she tightened her finger just a touch around the trigger.

Nash was moving her mouth, but not speaking. At first Shepard thought her beleaguered head had simply failed to hear, but then Nash cleared her throat.

"Well… shit, Shepard. I actually believe you. You're actually going to die for this thing, aren't you?"

"I told you, that won't work."

Now Nash's voice lost all of its character and became as deadpan as the girl's. "Who says I'm not serious, kid?"

They heard a rising, thunderous noise. Neither moved their eyes or their guns for a second as the train came to a stop by their side. The doors opened, but thankfully nobody got onto the platform. Shepard moved her head an inch to the side.

"General? Are you there?"

Rymus' deep voice echoed across the walls. "I'm here, Crawford."

Nash gave a confused squint, then let it pass.

"The train's here. It's headed to Phoenix. Do you know how to find the turian embassy, once you get into the city?"

"Yes, human, of course."

Shepard blinked once and took a deep breath, slowly and through her nose so that Nash could not see. She knew that this was her only chance to get Rymus away from Nash and the Reds. If the General was to make a run for hit, he would appear from behind Shepard and run right through their enemy's field of vision. She knew Nash could take him out before he got there, and probably before Shepard could stop her.

The girl knew she was risking the turian's life, but she had a hunch. It was her only chance.

"Get on the train, General," she said, her voice deep, crisp and calm. "_Now_."

On her command, the turian ran with the speed of his ancestors, using the powerful legs his predatory people had evolved to their full potential. Shepard heard him all-but dive into the train carriage, then listened to the slow, exhausted sigh of the doors closing. Two seconds later, General Rymus was long gone.

Nash's eyes were shimmering a little in the low light. Shepard thought that the beginnings of tears were forming in the sockets.

"I'm going to fucking _kill you_, Shepard."

"No you're not."

Nash's gun shook very slightly, then moved sharply. Shepard's reactions made her dodge to the left, aim again and prepare to fire, but it was unnecessary. Nash had dropped her weapon to the ground.

In the ensuing second, the girl in the red dress had gotten to her feet, kicked Nash's gun onto the train tracks and taken a step back. Her own pistol was still trained on the older woman's head.

"I couldn't let you kill him." It was all she could think of to say. Nash did not reply, and for a long moment did not look at the girl. When she did raise her head, she seemed curiously expressionless.

"I'm going to lift the gun in a minute, and you're going to go," Shepard said. "Don't chase him, Gina. He's gone. Don't have anyone chase him."

Nash looked thoughtful for a while. Finally she said, "If I tell the Reds about this they'll find you. If they find out what happened to Jay."

"I had no choice."

Nash waved a derisory hand. "I believe you, Shepard, but the others won't."

Shepard lowered her gun slightly. The authoritative voice she had been holding down vanished for a moment. "Please don't tell them."

Nash gave her trademark grin one more time and Shepard was glad to see it. "Don't worry, hon, I won't. I won't be popular for a while… seeing as I let this happen, but I don't want you dead. I think we already established that. I'll come up with an excuse."

The women looked at each other for a long while, knowing their strange friendship was coming to an end.

"I take it you'll be getting the hell out of Glendale?"

Shepard nodded. "I'm going North this time."

"Good."

Nash looked to the floor for a moment, then said, "Can I have your market? Seems to me that only you, me and Jay knew about it."

Shepard fought hard not to smile. "It's yours."

"Peachy."

With that, Nash straightened her neck and started to slowly walk away. The girl stopped her.

"I want you to leave the Reds," she said. "You're too goo…"

"_Shut the hell up_," came the stern reply, and Nash disappeared into the station's entrance hall.

The moment Nash's footsteps became inaudible, Shepard felt her whole body quivering as if she were gripped by extraordinary cold. When her legs buckled she fell to the ground and wrapped her arms around herself. She sat there, shaking and not particularly trying to control it, right until the next train arrived. Its doors opened slowly and she stood up.

The carriage was almost empty. At the far end was an elderly lady with a stern look, and a younger man with a pony-tail was just in front of her. Both gave Shepard a quizzical look, until she slipped the gun back into her pocket and took her seat. Knowing she could never return to the Kost Mart, Shepard absently made a list in her head of the possessions she had lost. There were not many.

Eventually the doors closed again and the tired, old train began to lumber onward toward the capital city. Shepard had a few ideas where she would go next, but it didn't matter. There were other, more important plans that had already started to occupy her thoughts.


	13. April 11th 2172

**Chapter Thirteen**

**April 11th 2172**

The sleek Vancouver coffee shop Shepard has selected is not the kind of place she would normally choose to kill time in. It's expensive and busy, and she doesn't care for the music they are playing. The large coffee she has been nursing for the last hour is actually pretty good, but that's not why she is here. She has chosen this particular place because it's right across the street from the Alliance Navy training centre.

She has been looking at the building all the time she has been here. It is tall, wide and sticks-out a little into the street. In this regard it reminds her a lot of the training centre back in Phoenix which she was once so fond of looking at. The front of the building is almost entirely glass, symbolising that the Alliance military is open to everyone and has nothing to hide. Shepard likes that. Over the last two years she has developed a romantic view of space travel and the Navy. During all that time she has wanted to enlist, and she has bothered the recruitment officers there more than once.

The coffee is nearly finished now, but she isn't about to rush it. That would be just a little too eager. The centre has been open for just over half an hour now. Secretly, a part of her is proud that she has resisted the childish temptation to rush over there for so long. Sipping gently, she averts her eyes from the hallowed building and takes a look down the street. She has become very familiar with this town and she wonders if she will soon have to leave it behind. In a way it will be a shame. It's a nice place. She has another sip before she carefully sets the cup down at the proper angle.

For a change, she looks around the shop itself. They have some very tempting croissants but Shepard has already had breakfast. She isn't the type to overeat. Still though, those croissants look great. She considers buying some to keep at her apartment when she has the chance.

A few sips later and the coffee is finished. She stands and tucks the chair behind her table before putting on her fine brown jacket. It looks good on her, and it's formal enough for her to wear inside the Alliance building. As she steps out onto the street, Shepard breathes in the relatively-clean air and thanks the heavens for the new air-filtering equipment that was installed a few months ago. Since that day the whole community seems to be happier. Although Shepard usually likes to keep to herself she has noticed the sense of optimism in her friends and her work colleagues.

Not for the first time, Shepard is struck by how much blue is used in the training centre's interior. The carpets, the uniforms and even the lighting cast that serious, deep, rich, ocean blue into the room. Even from the street it is hard not to notice. She touches the panel by her side and waits for the door to slide silently open. It does, and she steps into the blue. A young lady in a crisp, perfectly-creased blouse welcomes her from behind a desk and asks how she can help.

"Good morning," Shepard says. "I'm scheduled to speak to Lieutenant Richard Stillman today. I'm early."

The lady smiles, nods and consults a hologram screen in front of her.

"Ah, yes. Miss Shepard?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Good. The Lieutenant can see you now, if you'd like. You can find him in interview room three, just past the elevator there. I'll let him know you're on your way."

Shepard remembers the way. "Thanks," she says before striding purposefully down towards the interview room.

When she arrives she knocks on the door and is asked to come in. Stillman is a kind-looking man approaching middle age, dressed in standard Navy garb and wearing a simple crew-cut. His thick, black eyebrows have the potential to be menacing, but they are permanently angled upwards in a gesture of sympathy. Shepard remembers him, too.

"Good morning, miss Shepard. It's nice to see you again." The Lieutenant is smiling in a way that indicates that he finds humour in the memory of their previous meeting. Shepard can hardly blame him for that. She remembers making an appointment the day after she arrived in town. She had told this same officer of her grand ambitions of seeing space and protecting humanity. The Lieutenant had been forced to reject her based on her age, explaining to the heartbroken girl that she would have to wait at least a year and a half before she could swear her oath.

Shepard smiles back at him, slightly embarrassed by the memory. "Good morning, sir," she says.

"Let's see…" the officer mutters, scanning a computer display screen with his brown eyes. "When was the last time I saw you?"

"Just over a year ago," she answers. He checks his files anyway and nods at her when his search turns up the same information.

"Right. You were very interested in signing up, as I recall."

Lieutenant Stillman glances away from his screen and looks Shepard over. His eyebrows arch even more than usual as he compares her current appearance to the file photo he took to humour her at the previous meeting. The young woman's hair is shorter, first of all, well within regulation length but nonetheless quite attractively cut. She sits straight with her keen eyes trained on him and analyses his movements. Her face is all-but expressionless.

"Seems like a long time ago," he says to himself. Looking back over her small file, he reads the basic information he recorded when they first met. "Oh!" he says after a moment. "Happy birthday!"

"Thank you," young Shepard replies with the briefest hint of joy in her voice.

"This makes you… eighteen today?"

"Yes, sir."

For a moment Stillman considers something. He picks up a pen before asking, "What can I do for you today, miss?"

Shepard gets the impression from his tone that he already knows the answer. She tells him anyway, enjoying the moment. "I'd like to enlist with the introductory training programme, with the intention of graduating as a third-class serviceman at the end of this semester."

"You've done your homework, I see."

"I'm very committed to my goal of serving with the Alliance," she admits, smiling just a little.

"So I see." In the space of a few moments, the amused incredulity on the Lieutenant's face changes to contemplation, and finally becomes a show of respect. It's clear that the officer has taken a shine to Shepard based on her enthusiasm and air of professionalism. "Good for you," he says. "Good for you. We could use more recruits with that attitude."

Stillman puts his pen down and returns to the computer screen. He begins hitting the delete button a lot, erasing Shepard's old data and preparing a basic personnel file for her. "If you're absolutely sure, and if all goes well, I can sign you up for the training programme today," he tells her. "The paperwork will take us a while, and I'll need you to provide me with your employment history, details of education and so on. After that I can give you a formal interview for the programme, and we'll see where we are. How does that sound?"

"Thank you, sir. It sounds good."

The officer nods warmly and resumes his work on the computer. Shepard takes a look around the office, noting the usual prevalence of dark blue. She supposes she will have to get used to that if all goes well with her interview. Slowly, she uncrosses her legs. Up until now she has been feeling a little tense, but now that her interviewer is taking her seriously she feels a lot better.

Over the last year, Shepard has spent at least two hours of every day researching the Alliance Navy training programmes and preparing herself mentally and physically for them. She knows exactly what questions she will face in her preliminary interview today, and exactly what answers she will give. Once she has been enlisted and her training begins proper, she knows just what will happen there, too. She is completely ready for this and she has never felt more proud.

A soldier's life awaits her. It is exactly how she wants to live.

Stillman looks up from his screen again, his eyebrows jumping for a moment. "Pardon me," he says. "It seems that when last we met, I didn't take your first name. What is it please?"

Shepard leans forward and tells him.


End file.
